Urbanization, energy use, and CO₂ emissions: A provincial-level analysis of China

ABSTRACT

Most previous studies have studied the relationship among urbanization, energy use, and CO₂ emissions. In this paper, Ordinary Least Square (OLS), Fixed Effects (FE), Prais–Winsten (PW), and First Differenced (FD) regression model approaches are applied to analyze the correlation among urbanization, energy use, and CO₂ emissions in the interior provinces and eastern/coastal provinces of China. The results show that the impact of urbanization on CO₂ emissions is not homogenous for all provinces. The eastern/coastal provinces have a different elasticity with respect to per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and urbanization than the interior provinces. Also, it’s possible an Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) exists for the eastern provinces but not for China as a whole.

KEYWORDS:

• CO₂ emissions
• energy use
• eastern/coastal provinces
• interior provinces
• urbanization level

Funding

This research was partially supported by the Scholarship Award for Excellent Doctoral Student granted by the Ministry of Education (2010) and Hunan Provincial Innovation Foundation for Postgraduate (CX2010B155).

Additional information

Funding

This research was partially supported by the Scholarship Award for Excellent Doctoral Student granted by the Ministry of Education (2010) and Hunan Provincial Innovation Foundation for Postgraduate (CX2010B155).