Examining Determinants of CO2 Emissions in 73 Cities in China

Issues concerning which factors that influence carbon dioxide emission, and which administrative measures should be imposed to reduce carbon emission in Chinese cities, have been on the agenda in cities’ policy-making. Yet little literature has studied this topic from the city level. This paper first measures CO2 emission of 73 Chinese cities. We find heterogeneity embedded in the cross-city distribution of CO2 emission per capita and a nonlinear structure in the relationship between carbon emission and GDP per capita. To describe such multimodality and examine the determinants of CO2 emission in these cities, this article applies a linear mixed effect model covering the quadratic term of GDP per capita to extend the stochastic impact by regression on population, affluence, and technology (STIRPAT) model. The empirical results demonstrate that population size, secondary industry proportion, energy consumption structure, urbanization level and economic level have generally shown a positive influence on CO2 emissions in Chinese cities. However, the urbanization level is of no significance. The phenomenon of the environmental Kuznets curve varies across Chinese cities, according to which three city groups are formed. Specific policy recommendations are given to each city group in light of their unique influencing modes on carbon emissions.