Will improvements in transportation infrastructure help reduce urban carbon emissions?--motor vehicles as transmission channels

Abstract

Achieving the "dual carbon" goal requires focusing on the issue of urban transportation carbon emissions. This study derives the mechanism of transportation infrastructure on urban carbon emissions and uses panel data from 284 cities in China from 2004 to 2017 as a basis for empirical analysis through the two-stage least squares method (2SLS). The results of the study show that the improvement of transportation infrastructure has a significant negative effect on the level of urban carbon emissions, and it is greater than the positive spillover of the increase in the number of motor vehicles on urban carbon emissions. Further, research has shown that improvement of transportation infrastructure has no significant impact on the purchase of motor vehicles; therefore, the transportation infrastructure will not affect the "induced traffic" through the purchase of motor vehicles, thereby further affecting the level of urban carbon emissions. The enlightenment of this article include the following: In urban planning and construction, attention should be paid to reducing urban carbon emissions by improving the construction of transportation infrastructure to help China achieve its carbon peak and carbon neutral goals at an early date.

Keywords: Induced traffic; Motor vehicle use; The “dual carbon” goal; Traffic congestion; Transportation infrastructure; Urban carbon emissions.