Village Consolidation, Land Intensification, and Carbon Neutrality: Evidence from China’s Village Merger and Resettlement Policy

Land-use change is a major driver of climate change and carbon-cycle imbalance, yet its dual effects on carbon emissions and carbon sinks remain insufficiently examined in the context of rural spatial restructuring. As a key form of county-level rural land-use transformation in China, the Village Merger and Resettlement (VMR) policy reshapes the spatial distribution of rural population and land by concentrating residents, vacating idle homesteads, and optimizing land allocation. Treating VMR as a quasi-natural experiment, this study uses county-level panel data and a difference-in-differences approach to evaluate its impacts on regional carbon emissions and carbon-sink capacity. The findings indicate that VMR significantly reduces regional carbon emissions while enhancing carbon-sink capacity. Mechanism analysis shows that the emission-reduction effect operates mainly through population concentration, centralized infrastructure provision, and reduced household energy consumption, whereas the carbon-sink effect is driven by land intensification, agricultural mechanization, cultivated land-use adjustment, and improved vegetation cover. Heterogeneity analysis further reveals stronger emission-reduction effects in areas with a larger pre-policy urban–rural income gap and higher urbanization rates, and stronger carbon-sink effects in areas with greater terrain fragmentation and higher elevations. These findings suggest that rural spatial restructuring can contribute to regional carbon governance.