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The impact of urban population spatial distribution on CO2 emissions in China from the perspective of individual and interactive effects

  • Environmental quality, natural resources and Global Value Chain
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Abstract

As China’s rapid urbanization continues, uneven urban population spatial distribution (UPSD) has a profound impact on its CO2 emissions. To understand how UPSD shapes CO2 emissions in China, this study employs geographic detectors to analyze the spatial stratified heterogeneity patterns of urban CO2 emissions and explore the spatial individual and interactive effects of UPSD in 2005 and 2015. Results show that CO2 emissions increased significantly from 2005 to 2015, especially in developed cities and resource-based cities. The spatial individual effect of UPSD on spatial stratified heterogeneity pattern of CO2 emissions has gradually increased in the North Coast, South Coast, the Middle Yellow River, and the Middle Yangtze River. The interaction of UPSD and urban transportation infrastructure, urban economic development, and urban industrial structure plays a more important role on the North Coast and East Coast than in other city groups in 2005. In 2015, the interaction between UPSD and urban research and development was the traction of mitigating CO2 emissions in developed city groups, especially on the North Coast and East Coast. Moreover, the spatial interaction between the UPSD and urban industrial structure has gradually weakened in developed city groups, which means UPSD drives the prosperity of the service industry, thus contributing to the low-carbon development of Chinese cities.

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Data availability

The data used during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant numbers 71974176, 72174056], Hebei Province Social Science Development Research Youth Project [grant numbers 20220303032], and Special Research Project for Xiongan New Area [grant numbers 2023HXA005].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Finance, Qilu University of Technology (Shandong Academy of Sciences), 58 Sangyuan Road, Jinan, 250100, China

    Zhibo Zhao

  2. Australia-China Relations Institute, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, 2007, Australia

    Xunpeng Shi

  3. School of Management, Hebei University, Baoding, 071002, China

    Ye Cao

  4. Department of Statistics and Applied Probability, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, USA

    Mingzhao Hu

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  1. Zhibo Zhao
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  2. Xunpeng Shi
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  3. Ye Cao
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Contributions

Conceptualization, ZZB; formal analysis, calculating and writing- original draft preparation, ZZB, SX and CY; methodology and data curation, ZZB, SX, and CY; writing-review and editing, ZZB, SX, CY, and HMZ; supervision, ZZB and CY. Both authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Ye Cao.

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Zhao, Z., Shi, X., Cao, Y. et al. The impact of urban population spatial distribution on CO2 emissions in China from the perspective of individual and interactive effects. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 117096–117109 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-28105-8

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