Do greenhouse gas emissions drive extreme weather conditions at the city level in China? Evidence from spatial effects analysis

Abstract This paper employs spatial econometric models to depict the impact of CO2 emissions on extreme temperature of Chinese cities. Ten indicators are used to measure the extreme temperature, including extreme heat and extreme cold. Meanwhile, both the geographical and climatic factors and the economic factors are considered to control the model. The results show that CO2 emissions have significant effect on extreme weather changes. An increase in emissions leads to an increase in the probability of extreme heatby 0.00843 and a decrease in the probability of extreme cold by 0.00737. Considering the spatial effects, CO2 emissions increased the probability of extreme heat in local city and decreased that in nearby cities, while CO2 emissions decreased the ratio of extreme cold in both local city and neighboring cities. Specifically, the extreme heat days increased 0.114 day in the local city and decreased 15.601 days in the neighboring cities, while the extreme cold days decreased about 0.347 and 12.695 days for the local city and all neighboring cities, respectively. As climate changes resulted from emission growth have significant policy implications for sustainable development, this cannot be neglected in policy-making.