ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Urbanization Effect on Energy-Related Carbon
Emissions in Jiangsu Province from the Perspective
of Resident Consumption
Xinlin Zhang1,3-5, Yuan Zhao1-5, Xin Xu1,3-5, Changjian Wang6
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1School of Geographic Science, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, China
2Ginling College, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210097, China
3Key Laboratory of Virtual Geographic Environment (Nanjing Normal University),
Ministry of Education, Nanjing, 210023, China
4State Key Laboratory Cultivation Base of Geographical Environment Evolution (Jiangsu Province),
Nanjing, 210023, China
5Jiangsu Center for Collaborative Innovation in Geographical Information Resource Development and Application,
Nanjing, 210023, China
6Guangzhou Institute of Geography, Guangdong Open Laboratory of Geospatial Information Technology
and Application, Guangzhou 510070, China
Submission date: 2016-12-24
Final revision date: 2017-02-10
Acceptance date: 2017-02-13
Online publication date: 2017-06-22
Publication date: 2017-07-25
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2017;26(4):1875-1884
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ABSTRACT
Controlling carbon emissions without impairing urbanization and economic development highlights
the necessity of researching energy-related carbon emissions. Urban areas have become the main source
of energy consumption and carbon emissions. This paper has developed a modified version of the Kaya
identity, which incorporates urbanization and resident consumption, to analyze urbanization effect on
carbon emissions in Jiangsu Province. Then, the Kuznets curve theory was introduced to estimate the
inflection point of the marginal urbanization effect. The results indicated that the urbanization effect was
still an important factor that influences total carbon emissions. The marginal urbanization effect will still
increase until the urbanization rate reaches 78.94%. Therefore, Jiangsu should also pay attention to the
urbanization effect even though it may increase slowly or decrease, and the results of this paper on marginal
urbanization effect make it clear that controlling the carbon emissions without the expense of urbanization
growth and economic development is still a big challenge for Jiangsu Province. We have proposed some
policy recommendations, which include paying attention to the quality of development of urbanization,
adjusting the industrial structure, making changes to lifestyles, and so on.