Spatio-temporal evolution of urban carbon emission intensity and spatiotemporal heterogeneity of influencing factors in China

Investigating the Spatiotemporal Evolution and Pathway Migration of Urban Carbon Intensity in China from 2005 to 2020 using Map Visualization, Kernel Density Estimation, and Standard Deviation Ellipses. Empirical Examination of Spatiotemporal Heterogeneity of Factors Affecting Urban Carbon Intensity using a Geographically and Temporally Weighted Regression (GTWR) Model. The study finds that: (1) Carbon emission intensity in Chinese cities has decreased over the years but remains significantly higher than that of developed countries during the same period, with considerable room for emission reduction. Spatially, there is a north-south disparity in carbon emission intensity, which has become more prominent in the later period of the study. (2) The differences in carbon emission intensity of cities within each region gradually converged, and the distribution became more balanced. The multi-level differentiation of carbon emission intensity in the eastern region was remarkable, and there were still high carbon agglomerations in the west. The region with high carbon emission intensity gradually shifted to the northwest, and the northwest became the main contributor to China's carbon emissions. (3) In general, high-carbon energy consumption has a positive effect in promoting carbon intensity, while industrial upgrading, economic development, population agglomeration, technological research and development, and foreign investment intensity have mainly negative inhibitory effects. However, at the local level, the effects of these factors exhibit significant spatiotemporal heterogeneity. The direction and strength of the fluctuations of various influencing factors vary across different regions and periods. © 2023 Chinese Society for Environmental Sciences. All rights reserved.