DRIVING FACTORS OF RISING ENERGY DEMAND: THE ROLE OF GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE, AIR POLLUTION, AND SURFACE PROPERTIES IN MITIGATING URBAN HEAT ISLAND EFFECTS IN CHINA

As China pursues carbon neutrality and sustainable urbanization, understanding the structural and environmental drivers of urban energy consumption has become increasingly urgent.This study investigates the long-and short-run impacts of urban form, surface temperature, building materials, land use, energy efficiency, green infrastructure, air pollution, and surface albedo on urban energy consumption across ten of China's most urbanized provincial-level regions.These include the municipalities of Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Chongqing, and the provinces of Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shandong, Fujian, and Sichuan, over the period 2000 to 2022.Using a cross-sectionally augmented autoregressive distributed lag (CS-ARDL) framework and validating the results through Augmented Mean Group (AMG) and Common Correlated Effects Mean Group (CCEMG) estimators, we find that energy efficiency and green infrastructure significantly reduce urban energy demand, while dense land use, pollution, and thermally intensive materials increase it.A novel contribution of this study is the use of a composite air pollution index derived from PM., NO, and SO data, as well as the integration of surface albedo as a determinant of energy demand under climate-adaptive strategies.Impulse response functions further confirm that policy shocks in efficiency and infrastructure yield both immediate and sustained reductions in urban energy consumption.The findings highlight the importance of integrating technological, environmental, and spatial planning strategies in urban energy governance.They also provide actionable insights for tailoring policies to the distinct conditions of rapidly growing regions in China.