Is the development model moving towards a low-carbon resilience? Analysis on the characteristics of China's provincial carbon emissions in the context of urbanization

The challenges of urbanization transformation and carbon emissions reduction are two major issues confronting China. Examining the dynamic characteristics of carbon emissions within the context of urbanization can facilitate the development of potential strategies for reducing carbon. Firstly, this study integrated six dimensions including population, economy, technology, land, industrial structure and education into the urbanization development intensity to evaluate the level of regional urbanization development. Then, based on resilience theory, we developed the concept of low-carbon resilience (LCR). And the evolution of carbon emissions characteristics of different urbanization developments is evaluated by integrating the dependency, efficiency, adaptability, robustness between carbon emissions and urbanization into the LCR. The results show that the carbon emission characteristics at the provincial level of China show the path from high efficiency, low dependency and low adaptability to low efficiency, high dependency and medium adaptability, and then to high efficiency, low dependency and high adaptability. This shift highlights governments must respond with increasingly integrated and systematic thinking, combining emission reduction actions with social, economic, ecological and other dimensions to enhance the multi-dimensional strategic thinking of emission reduction.