The Impact of Urbanization on Carbon Emissions and Spatial–Temporal Differentiation Based on Meta-Analysis in China

Abstract

Urbanization and carbon emissions have received more attention in the context of “double carbon”, but the existing research on the relationship between the two has not reached a consistent conclusion. By introducing meta-regression analysis, based on the existing research results, this paper retests the relationship between urbanization and carbon emissions, and discusses the reasons for the differences in previous research results from the perspectives of publication bias and research heterogeneity. The results show that (1) urbanization in China has a strong positive impact on carbon emissions and meets the inverted U-shaped Kuznets curve relationship, and (2) there are significant temporal and spatial differences in the impact of urbanization on carbon emissions in China. Temporally, the positive impact is the strongest in the first decade of the 21st century, and in regional terms, the positive impact is the strongest in the eastern region. In addition, the selection of indicators will not interfere with the measurement of the impact of urbanization on carbon emissions.