Climate Change Mitigation Through Forest Quality Enhancement and Socio-Ecological Symbiosis: Evidence from China

This paper, based on an analysis of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) for forest quality and carbon emissions in economic systems, explores effective pathways for carbon emission reduction through the symbiosis between forest quality and economic growth. The findings suggest that, without considering forest quality, the overall EKC for China presents an inverted U shape. However, when forest quality is integrated into the model, the overall EKC demonstrates an upward trend, indicating a positive impact on reducing carbon emissions. Geographically, the EKCs in the northwest, northeast, and central-southern regions display an inverted U shape, while those in the north and southwest show a U shape, and the eastern regions exhibit an approximately linear upward curve, reflecting regional disparities in carbon emission trends and environmental management. The synergy between forest quality and economic development significantly contributes to climate change mitigation, with enhancing the carbon emission suppression coefficient of both forest quality and economic systems being the most effective pathway for carbon reduction. The main contribution of this paper lies in the evaluation for forest quality based on entropy weights, and the application of a symbiotic model to analyze the EKC of carbon emissions in relation to forest quality and climate resilience.