Abstract
This paper examines how urban concentration affects CO2 emissions using data across 24 provinces in China over the period 2000–2008. Moving beyond current literature on the relationship between urbanization and CO2 emissions, this study has two novel findings. The first is that the degree of urban concentration has a significant impact on the provinces’ CO2 emissions, which suggests that not only urbanization per se but also the form urbanization takes matters for reducing CO2 emissions. The second is that urban concentration initially contributes to CO2 emissions but this impact tends to be weaker for further urbanization. It implies that the environmental impacts of urban concentration vary across different stages of urbanization. Our research suggests that how cities grow and are organized spatially is important in decoupling CO2 emissions from urbanization and economic development.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
- 2.
See the calculation of Gini coefficient in Henderson and Wang (2007).
- 3.
Specifically, the absolute deviation equals \( {\sum}_i{\sum}_j\kern0.24em {S}_{ij}{\overset{\kern1.75em \dots }{-S}}_j,\kern0.36em {S}_{ij} \) where is the share of sector j in city I’s output and \( {\overset{\dots }{S}}_j \) is the average of S ij across i.
References
Auffhammer M, Carson RT (2008) Forecasting the path of China’s CO2 emissions using province-level information. J Environ Econ Manag 55(3):229–247
Burton E (2001) The compact city: just or just compact? A preliminary analysis. Urban Stud 37(11):1969–2001
Dietz T, Rosa EA (1994) Rethinking the environmental impacts of population, affluence, and technology. Hum Ecol Rev 1:277–300
Duranton G, Puga D (2004) Micro-foundations of urban agglomeration economies. In: Henderson JV, Thisse J (eds) Handbook of urban and regional economics, vol 4. North-Holland, Amsterdam, pp 2063–2118
Ehrlich PR, Holdren JR (1971) Impacts of population growth. Science 171:1212–1217
Fujita M, Krugman P, Venables AJ (1999) The spatial economy: cities, regions, and international trade. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA
Glaeser EL, Kahn ME (2001) The greenness of cities: carbon dioxide emissions and urban development. J Urban Econ 67:404–418
Grossman GM, Krueger AB (1995) Economic growth and the environment. Quart J Econ 110:353–377
Henderson JV (1988) Urban development: theory, fact and illusion. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Henderson JV (2000) The effect of urban concentration on economic growth. NBER working paper 7503, Cambridge, MA
Henderson JV (2010) Cities and development. J Reg Sci 50:515–540
Henderson JV, Wang HG (2007) Urbanization and city growth: the role of institutions. Reg Sci Urban Econ 37:283–313
IPCC (2007) The fourth assessment report: climate change 2007 (AR4). http://www.ipcc.ch/
Kamal-Chaoui L, Robert A (2009) Competitive cities and climate change. OECD regional development working papers no. 2, OECD publishing
Karathodorou N, Graham DJ, Noland RB (2010) Estimating the effect of urban density on fuel demand. Energy Econ 32:86–92
Krugman P (1991) Increasing returns and economic geography. J Polit Econ 99(3):483–499
MartÍnez-Zarzoso I (2008) The impact of urbanization on CO2 emissions: evidence from developing countries. SSRN paper 1151928, Rochester, NY
Pounmanyvong P, Kaneko S (2010) Does urbanization lead to less energy use and lower CO2 emissions? A cross-county analysis. Ecol Econ 70:434–444
Schmalensee R, Stoker TM, Judson RA (1998) World carbon dioxide emissions: 1950–2050. Rev Econ Stat 1:15–27
Stern DI (2004) The rise and fall of the Environmental Kuznets Curve. World Dev 2004(32):1419–1439
Stern N (2008) The economics of climate change. Am Econ Rev Pap Proc 98:1–37
Young A (2000) The razor’s edge: distortions and incremental reform in the People’s Republic of China. Q J Econ 115:1091–1135
Zhang Z (2000) Decoupling China’s carbon emissions increase from economic growth: an economic analysis and policy implications. World Dev 2000(28):739–752
Zheng S, Wang R, Glaeser EL, Kahn ME (2010) The greenness of China: household carbon emissions and urban development. J Econ Geogr 2010:1–32
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to acknowledge funding supports from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41371007 and 71003026).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Qin, B., Wu, J. (2015). The Form of Urbanization and Carbon Emissions in China: A Panel Data Analysis Across the Provinces 2000–2008. In: Wong, TC., Han, S., Zhang, H. (eds) Population Mobility, Urban Planning and Management in China. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15257-8_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15257-8_7
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-15256-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-15257-8
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)