Urban expansion and the low-carbon transition: a multidimensional agglomeration perspective from China

This paper analyses the effects of urban expansion on carbon emissions by using data for 279 cities in China. Urban expansion has a significant impact on reducing carbon emissions. Low-carbon transition is achieved by population and economic agglomeration. The influence of industrial agglomeration is not significant and limited to service-oriented cities. Population agglomeration occurs due to population scale rather than spatial spillovers of human capital. The driver of economic agglomeration is the capital matching effect. Urban expansion has a more significant impact on low-carbon transition in non-resource cities, larger cities, ‘high-carbon expansion’ cities and ‘low-carbon expansion’ cities.