[Impact of Environmental Pressure from Urban Development on the Level of Carbon Emissions in Urban Areas]

Due to the increasing and rapid economic and population growth over the past years, urban areas have become the focus of carbon-emission-reduction policies. Meanwhile, they are also continuously subjected to environmental pressure from urban development. Therefore, this study used the STIRPAT model to develop an index to capture the environmental pressure from urban development based on a panel dataset of 284 prefecture cities from 2006 to 2022 in mainland China. Subsequently, a fixed effect model and a quantile regression model were used to test the impact of the environmental pressure from urban development on the level of urban carbon emissions. The results showed a notable relationship between the environmental pressure from urban development and the level of urban carbon emissions. More specifically, for every one-unit increase in the index, the urban carbon emission level increased by 1.4%. This result was found stable after a series of robustness tests. Furthermore, quantile regression showed that before the 50th percentile, the environmental pressure from urban development had a positive impact on the level of urban carbon emissions, whereas after the 50th percentile, it had a negative impact. Finally, heterogeneity analysis indicated that, compared to in large cities, the positive impact of the environmental pressure from urban development on urban carbon emission levels was more significant in small-sized, medium-sized, and megacities. Therefore, it is recommended to continuously optimize the context for business and trading and promote the industrial structure. Carbon emission reduction targets should be differentiated based on development levels of cities. While implementing carbon emission reduction measures in urban areas, population and other conditions should be taken into account.