The Form of Urbanization and Carbon Emissions in China: A Panel Data Analysis Across the Provinces 2000–2008

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.