The Impacts of Urbanization on Carbon Emission Performance: New Evidence from the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration, China

Regarding the carbon emission performance of urbanization, the changes in carbon emissions and carbon sinks have attracted particular attention, while the internal impact mechanism has been under-researched. Conventionally, urbanization has either improved or hindered carbon performance. However, this is not always the case as the paths of urbanization affecting carbon emission performance are diverse. Hence, this paper proposes a theoretical framework to investigate how urbanization influences carbon emission performance, specifically the indirect effects of land development/land-use efficiency, by taking the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration, China, as a study case. Empirical results show that urbanization improves carbon emission performance due to the agglomeration effect. As an intermediary pathway, land-use change has a two-sided impact on carbon emission performance. Urbanization can both worsen and improve carbon emission performance through increasing land-development intensity and promoting land-use efficiency, respectively. However, the positive impact of land-use efficiency can alleviate the problem of increasing carbon emissions caused by land over-development. Hence, the integration of urban planning strategies with land use management policies can help to achieve sustainable urbanization.