While expanding the population size and economic volume of cities, the new type of urbanization focuses on promoting the transformation of industries and lifestyles from county to city. Scientifically analyzing the impact mechanism of new urbanization on carbon emissions and formulating policy priorities around the carbon reduction mechanism is the key to promoting the development strategy of low-carbon cities. Existing research lacks a systematic deconstruction of the transmission mechanism between urbanization and carbon emissions at the county scale, and there are even rarer quantitative evaluations of rural urbanization in place (RISU), a path with Chinese characteristics. This study fills this gap through theoretical innovation and path identification: This study takes China’s RISU as a representative policy of new urbanization and innovatively constructs a multidimensional RISU index integrating the nonagricultural transformation of rural areas. By analyzing the data of 514 county-level samples from 2000 to 2020, it precisely reveals the specific impact of RISU on carbon emissions. Meanwhile, through empirical verification by the mediation model, the dual mediating roles of economic agglomeration and income-driven consumption patterns have been clarified. Furthermore, the research has identified the key critical threshold for fiscal decentralization, establishing a quantifiable benchmark for the design of intergovernmental fiscal policies. The research results show that the regional industrial agglomeration effect (RISU) affects carbon emissions through economic agglomeration and income effects, presenting significant heterogeneous characteristics: the emission reduction effect is obvious in resource-based regions, while emissions are exacerbated in non-resource-based regions. In counties and cities with a higher degree of fiscal decentralization, the effect of emission reduction is more significant. These conclusions not only provide a theoretical basis for understanding the carbon reduction mechanism of new urbanization types, but also offer differentiated policymaking suggestions for urban planners in different regions, and have significant decision-making value for the strategic synergy between new urbanization and low-carbon economy.
Pan et al. (Mon,) studied this question.