Coupling coordination between new urbanisation and carbon emissions in China

The strategic coordination of a new urbanisation and carbon emissions (NU-CE) systems in China is essential for advancing low-carbon urbanisation and sustainable urban planning. This paper introduces an improved coupling coordination degree (CCD) model, spatial auto-correlation and other methods to evaluate past and future states of coordination. The data, which are collected from the period 2010-2019 and 30 provinces in China, demonstrate the temporal and spatial evolution characteristics of the NU-CE coupling relationship. The relevant results are fourfold. (1) The level of NU in China continues to rise, alongside significant spatial heterogeneity, which is particularly evident in the eastern coastal areas. (2) The CE subsystem fluctuates slightly, also revealing differences between the southern and northern regions, where Shanxi and Inner Mongolia have the lowest levels. (3) The NU-CE CCD in each province continuously improved during the study period, which is closely related to different development stages and geographic locations. As a result, a ladder-type pattern of gradual decline emerges from the eastern coastal region to central and western regions. (4) NU-CE CCD has significant positive spatial correlation characteristics. The high-high CCD area exhibits a tendency to shift towards the central region, and the low-low cluster area from the southwest to the northwest region. (5) Finally, the grey GM(1,1) prediction model is used to predict the CCD of 30 provinces in 2020-2024. The findings illustrate a growing state of NU-CE coordination and strengthening spatial correlations in the future. Based on the findings of this study, a series of policy suggestions for improving China's new urbanisation and carbon emissions is proposed.