Empirical Study on the Impact of Urbanization and Carbon Emissions under the Dual-Carbon Framework Based on Coupling and Coordination
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Authors,
I received a very interesting article for review. However, the paper needs some revisions so that it can be well appreciated by the intended audience.
The title needs an adjustment. The title of the article should be rethought because it does not present the content of the article - it must be changed and clarified.
The entire article should be adapted to the Template of “Sustainability”!!! IT’S VERY IMPORTANT
There is no clear link between the title of the article, objectives, research
methods and the summary and the final conclusions.
The research goal should be specified in the introduction, otherwise, the introduction does not meet the publication standards in line with the guidelines of "Sustainability".
The article has the following text in several places:
What does that mean? See: (verses 448-457) ??? and see below in the text, too.
The whole article should be reordered because it loses its value, i.e. the essence is invisible.
In my opinion, the number of cited sources is absolutely too small, because it reduces the substantive value of the article.
Good Luck,
Reviewer
Author Response
I received a very interesting article for review. However, the paper needs some revisions so that it can be well appreciated by the intended audience.
- The title needs an adjustment. The title of the article should be rethought because it does not present the content of the article - it must be changed and clarified.
Reply: Thank you very much for your suggestions. After grasping the content of the full text, the research has revised and adjusted the original title to make it better display the content of the article. The revised title is “Empirical study on the impact of urbanization and carbon emissions under the dual-carbon framework based on coupling and coordination”.
- The entire article should be adapted to the Template of “Sustainability”!!! IT’S VERY IMPORTANT.
Reply: Thank you very much for your suggestions. The entire article wasnow adapted to the Template of “Sustainability”
- There is no clear link between the title of the article, objectives, researchmethods and the summary and the final conclusions.
Reply: Thank you very much for your suggestions. In the Introduction of the revised paper, the research has supplemented the contents, methods and results of the research. Here is a description of the relevant content for you: in view of the contradictions and constraints between the current urbanization construction and development and the carbon emission environment and resources, it is proposed to promote the low-carbon urbanization construction under the guidance of coupling and coordinated scheduling. The concept of coupling coordination degree in the ecological sense is transferred to the development relationship of low-carbon cities and towns, and the relationship between urbanization and carbon emissions is empirically analyzed under the framework of dual-carbon background. From the systematic correlation between urbanization construction and carbon emissions and the relevant definition of coupling coordination degree, to the construction of indicator system and the design of regression model in the method part to analyze the relationship between the two under the coordination degree, and then in the result part to prove the effectiveness of the coordination degree model, the test results of the regression model and the analysis of intermediary effect. By analyzing the evolution of the coupling relationship between urbanization construction and carbon emissions, the research aims to provide reference for the design of low-carbon urbanization construction system, and focuses on exploring the regression relationship between urbanization construction and carbon emissions and the impact changes.
- The research goal should be specified in the introduction, otherwise, the introduction does not meet the publication standards in line with the guidelines of "Sustainability".
Reply: Thank you very much for your suggestions. The research has added the contents of the introduction, and logically rearranged and added the methods proposed in the research, the objectives to be achieved and the summary.
The research goal was specified in the introduction as:
…… by means of analyzing the evolution of the coupling relationship between urbanization construction and carbon emissions, the research goal is to provide reference for the design of low-carbon urbanization construction policy system.
- The article has the following text in several places:
(1) What does that mean? See: (verses 448-457) ??? and see below in the text, too.
Reply: Thank you very much for your comments. This part is mainly about the regression test of intermediary effect. The construction of new urbanization is conducive to reducing carbon emissions, but its transmission mechanism is not clear, and will be affected by population size, economic development level and relevant policy mechanisms. The intermediary effect results can effectively provide further support results for the impact mechanism between the development of new urbanization and carbon emissions, so as to better study the coupling relationship between the two. The research has added the description of relevant content in the corresponding part to make the meaning of the article more clear.
(2)The whole article should be reordered because it loses its value, i.e. the essence is invisible.
Reply: Thank you very much for your suggestions. The research has reordered the whole article and reorganized its contents.
In the Introduction, the current situation, background and problems of low-carbon urbanization development are discussed, and the research contents of some scholars on the relationship between urbanization construction and ecological environment are described. Subsequently, the indicators related to the systematic relevance and coupling coordination of urbanization and carbon emissions are combined and adjusted into the second part, so that readers can have a clearer understanding of the relationship between the two before understanding the research methods. Then, in the method part, the construction of index system and the design of regression model are discussed, and the performance test and regression analysis are carried out in the result part. Finally, the relevant contents are explained and compared in the discussion section.
The framework structure of the whole article follows: the introduction of urbanization construction and carbon emission status quo - the evolution of the coupling relationship between the two and the analysis of the internal mechanism - the design of low-carbon urbanization methods - the test of model results - the discussion part.
(3) In my opinion, the number of cited sources is absolutely too small, because it reduces the substantive value of the article.
Reply: Thank you very much for your suggestions. The research has added research documents applicable to the subject of the article, including empirical research related to coupling coordination degree and content related to urban construction and development.
The references:
[16] Ma, SB; Li, ZF; Li, L; Yuan, MQ.Coupling coordination degree spatiotemporal characteristics and driving factors between new urbanization and construction industry: evidence from China[J]. Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management.2022.8(18).https://doi.org/ 10.1108/ECAM-05-2022-0471
[17] Zou, C; Zhu, JW; Lou, KL; Yang, L.Coupling coordination and spatiotemporal heterogeneity between urbanization and ecological environment in Shaanxi Province, China[J]. Ecological Indicators.2022.8(141).https://doi.org/ 10.1016/j.ecolind.2022.109152
[18] Xia, XX; Li, HC; Kuang, XJ; Strauss, J.Spatial-Temporal Features of Coordination Relationship between Regional Urbanization and Rail Transit-A Case Study of Beijing[J]. Environ. Res. Public Health.2022, 19(1), 212.https://doi.org/ 10.3390/ijerph19010212.
[19] Chen, P; Shi, XQ.Dynamic evaluation of China's ecological civilization construction based on target correlation degree and coupling coordination degree[J]. Environmental Impact AssessmentReview.2022.3(93)106734.https://doi.org/ 10.1016/j.eiar.2021.106734.
[20] Li, LZ; Yang, NN; Li, JS; He, AK; Yang, H; Jiang, ZL; Zhao, YM.Exploring the interactive coupled relationship between urban construction and resource environment in Wuhan, China[J]. Environment, Development and Sustainability.2021.23.11179-11200.https://doi.org/ 10.1007/s10668-020-01127-9.
[42] Zhou H , Xu G . Research on the impact of green finance on China's regional ecological development based on system GMM model[J]. Resources Policy, 2022, 75:102454. https://10.1016/j.resourpol.2021.102454
[44]Xia, XX; Lin, KX; Ding, Y; Dong, XL; Sun, HJ; Hu, BB.Research on the Coupling Coordination Relationships between Urban Function Mixing Degree and Urbanization Development Level Based on Information Entropy[J]. Environmental Science and Engineering) .2021, 18(1), 242.https://doi.org/ 10.3390/ijerph18010242
[48] Zhang, F; Ju, SB; Chan, NW; Ariken, M; Tan, ML; Yushanjiang, A; Wang, YS.Coupled analysis of new urbanization quality (NUQ) and eco-environmental carrying capacity (EECC) of prefecture-level and above cities in China during 2003-2016[J]. Environment, Development and Sustainability.2022.24.8008-8038.https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-021-01771-9
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Present research examines “Empirical Research on the Relationship Between Urbanization Construction and Carbon Emissions Based on the Degree of Coupling Coordination Under Double Carbon Background. “.In this paper there are some unclear and some neglected points within the methodology which are recommended to be addressed before this paper can be considered for the publication.
1- In Abstract, main results should be summarized. The authors should present the most important quantitative results in the abstract.
2- The authors should discuss the results obtained in more detail, how will these be utilized?
3- The literature review part provided by the authors should be improved significantly. i.e., additional information regarding the obtained results and findings must be added for the mentioned references as they could be useful for the readers.
4- The literature group should be largely expanded to cover newly published relative papers. References need to get to the point of the paper and clearly spell out its contributions. 5- The authors should provide an analysis deeper about the results, comparing with the other
researches or similar cases studies.
6- The comparatives in discussion section should be improved by obtaining the results based on the same dataset.
7- The Discussion must be improved to be more significant, and not just an interpretation of what is shown in the Figures.
8- The equations in the manuscript presented confusing and should be additionally explained by text and corresponding sketches. Also, some of the equations should be used to connect with references.
Author Response
Present research examines “Empirical Research on the Relationship Between Urbanization Construction and Carbon Emissions Based on the Degree of Coupling Coordination Under Double Carbon Background”.In this paper there are some unclear and some neglected points within the methodology which are recommended to be addressed before this paper can be considered for the publication.
1-In Abstract, main results should be summarized. The authors should present the most important quantitative results in the abstract.
Reply: Thank you very much for your kind suggestions. Now, the main results were summarized and the most important quantitative results wereprovided in the abstract. As follows:
The coupling coordination degree of urbanization construction and improvement of carbon emission system in all provinces is generally on the rise, which is specifically reflected in the range of coupling coordination degree in 2020 (0.1621~0.7334), which is first enhanced and then weakened compared with the previous data (0.1282~0.4868), indicating that the positive promotion effect of regional urban development and cooperation on the construction of low-carbon environment is declining. The maximum value of regional spatial autocorrelation reached 0.24, and the regulatory interaction coefficient of carbon reduction technology and regional cooperation was 0.1538 and 0.4807, respectively, which had a positive role in promoting the development of regional urbanization can accelerate the process of carbon reduction. However, at present, the positive effect of urbanization construction cooperation or carbon emission reduction cooperation is weakening, and the characteristics of spatial imbalance are relatively obvious. Therefore, in the future, we should speed up the adjustment of the spatial coordination of urbanization development and the formulation of relevant carbon emission reduction policies and measures, improve the spatial relevance of the coupling coordination degree, so as to achieve the efficient development of low-carbon economy in the context of dual carbon.
2-The authors should discuss the results obtained in more detail, how will these be utilized?
Reply: Thank you very much for your kind suggestions. The authors discussed in more detail the results obtained and how they could be used, especially in Sections 2 and 4 in the revised paper.Such as the contents in Section 4 “Discussion”:
Urbanization construction is conducive to reducing carbon emissions and has good strong guidance, but its transmission mechanism and its impact relationship have not been well explored, and whether external factors such as urban population size, geographical location, economic scale, human capital, environmental regulation will affect urban carbon emissions reduction. Only by exploring the relationship between urban development and carbon reduction mechanism in different regions can we take targeted emission reduction measures. The construction of new urbanization mainly affects carbon emissions through infrastructure construction, energy efficiency and environmental regulation. Therefore, the analysis of its intermediary effect can effectively analyze the heterogeneous results of different influencing factors and the spatial relationship between urbanization level and carbon emissions.And the intermediary effect indicates that the construction of infrastructure can effectively intervene in the implementation of the carbon The carbon reduction activities in the eastern region can achieve their positive impact on the central region through the adjustment of the energy structure.In addition, environmental regulation reduces the marginal effect of the agglomeration effect in the course of urbanization growth, the regression coefficients of the application of carbon reduction technology and the strengthening of regional cooperation reached 0.1538 and 0.4807, and the interaction coefficient of regional cooperation under the 10% significance level test is −1.4693. The balanced and rapid development of behavioral urbanization and ecological environmental protection has increasingly become an important national strategy. Based on the principle of sustainable development, Zhang, F scholars conducted a coupling and co-scheduling analysis on the environmental quality (NUQ) and ecological environmental carrying capacity (EECC) of 246 prefecture-level and above cities in China's new urbanization, and analyzed the differences between cities using the coefficient of variation (CV) method. The results show that the coordinated development cities are mainly concentrated in the eastern coastal areas, the center of gravity CCD is found to move from the northeast to the southwest, and the cluster positions of HH and LH (CDD main city - low, CDD surrounding cities - high) are mainly concentrated around the megalopolis, but most of the evaluated cities have not achieved coordinated development. The analysis of urban coupling coordination degree is an important measure to effectively strengthen the construction of ecological civilization in urbanization.There are certain spatial and regional differences between the results and the development of urban coordination degree proposed in the study. The relationship between urban construction and the environment by means of coupling coordination degree can effectively provide decision-making guidance and achieve the goal of double carbon[48].
3-The literature review part provided by the authors should be improved significantly. i.e., additional information regarding the obtained results and findings must be added for the mentioned references as they could be useful for the readers.
Reply: Thank you very much for your suggestions. The research conducted a more targeted literature search for the research contentand supplemented the content and relevant results contained in the literature, so that readers can better understand the relevant content. Such as:
Rapid urbanization has destroyed the structure and function of the ecosystem, and the deterioration of the ecological environment has also hindered the quality of urban development and restricted the sustainable development of cities. In order to deeply explore the coordination measurement and spatio-temporal heterogeneity between urbanization and ecological environment, Ma, SB scholars took the statistical data of Shaanxi Province from 2005 to 2019 as an example, and explored the dynamic change and spatio-temporal heterogeneity of the coupling relationship between regional urbanization and ecological environment with the help of indicator system construction, coupling coordination degree model (CCDM), relative development degree model (RDDM) and geographic and time-weighted regression (GTWR). The results show that the growth rate of ecological environment in Shaanxi Province is lower than the urbanization level, and the spatial difference of the coupling and coordinated development state between different regions is significant, which is generally shown as "lagging urbanization - synchronous development - lagging ecological environment" [16]. Zou, C scholars believe that the mixing of urban functions under the blind expansion of urban space seriously restricts the level of urbanization development, so it is very important to strengthen the analysis of the degree of coordination between the two. The model of information entropy and time entropy is constructed with the help of urban interest points and track data. The results show that the higher the degree of spatial agglomeration, the higher the degree of urban function mixing and urbanization development, and the higher the degree of coupling and coordination between urbanization development level, POI spatial entropy and taxi time entropy. Therefore, the degree of coupling coordination is of great significance and value in the rational planning of the construction of urban functional areas and the sustainable development of cities [17]. In the context of rapid development, the problems of urbanization construction, resource consumption and ecological environment are increasingly prominent. A comprehensive study of urbanization level (CUL) and ecological total factor energy efficiency (ETFEE) is conducive to the development of new urbanization and ecological protection. Xia, XX scholars have built a multi-dimensional urban evaluation system and calculated it with the coupling coordination degree (CCD) model. The results show that CCD is transiting from low to medium coupling stage to medium to high [18]. Chen, P scholar team applied AHP and grey correlation analysis and coupling theory to evaluate the dynamic characteristics and influencing factors of ecological civilization, and the results showed that the comprehensive coupling coordination has significantly improved the degree of institutionalization in 2006-2017, and the ecological environment is still the main constraint subsystem construction affecting ecological civilization [19]. Li, LZ scholars take Wuhan, a megacity in China, as an example to analyze the balance between urban construction and resources and environment, and analyze it with the help of index system, bivariate autocorrelation model, coupling coordination model and spatial lag model (SLM). The results show that the social economy and the construction of regional relations have obvious overall positive correlation, with high degree of agglomeration and strong spatial heterogeneity. The spatial agglomeration effect can improve the urban development capacity and the level of resources and environment [20].
4-The literature group should be largely expanded to cover newly published relative papers. References need to get to the point of the paper and clearly spell out its contributions.
Reply: Thank you very much for your suggestions. The research has been expanded to cover newly published relevant papers, and its contents have been elaborated.
The references:
- Ma, SB; Li, ZF; Li, L; Yuan, MQ.Coupling coordination degree spatiotemporal characteristics and driving factors between new urbanization and construction industry: evidence from China[J]. Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management.2022.8(18).https://doi.org/ 10.1108/ECAM-05-2022-0471
- Zou, C; Zhu, JW; Lou, KL; Yang, L.Coupling coordination and spatiotemporal heterogeneity between urbanization and ecological environment in Shaanxi Province, China[J]. Ecological Indicators.2022.8(141).https://doi.org/ 10.1016/j.ecolind.2022.109152
- Xia, XX; Li, HC; Kuang, XJ; Strauss, J.Spatial-Temporal Features of Coordination Relationship between Regional Urbanization and Rail Transit-A Case Study of Beijing[J]. Environ. Res. Public Health.2022, 19(1), 212.https://doi.org/ 10.3390/ijerph19010212.
- Chen, P; Shi, XQ.Dynamic evaluation of China's ecological civilization construction based on target correlation degree and coupling coordination degree[J]. Environmental Impact AssessmentReview.2022.3(93)106734.https://doi.org/ 10.1016/j.eiar.2021.106734.
- Li, LZ; Yang, NN; Li, JS; He, AK; Yang, H; Jiang, ZL; Zhao, YM.Exploring the interactive coupled relationship between urban construction and resource environment in Wuhan, China[J]. Environment, Development and Sustainability.2021.23.11179-11200.https://doi.org/ 10.1007/s10668-020-01127-9.
5-The authors should provide an analysis deeper about the results, comparing with the other researches or similar cases studies.
Reply: Thank you very much for your suggestions. In the corresponding part (Sections 1, 3 and 5) of the revised paper, literature comparison was added to better support the proof of relevant results.
6-The comparatives in discussion section should be improved by obtaining the results based on the same dataset.
Reply: Thank you very much for your suggestions. In the discussion section, the comparison and discussion of relevant contents were added to make the experimental results more credible.
7-The Discussion must be improved to be more significant, and not just an interpretation of what is shown in the Figures.
Reply: Thank you very much for your suggestions. In the discussion part, the study added the comparison and discussion of relevant contents, and added explanations to relevant contents.
8-The equations in the manuscript presented confusing and should be additionally explained by text and corresponding sketches. Also, some of the equations should be used to connect with references.
Reply: Thank you very much for your suggestions. The research has inserted and applied some basic theoretical equations in the literature, and added the description of relevant text content to ensure the logic of the content. The content of the equation can better explain the content.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Authors,
thank you for your reply and cover letter.
In my opinion, the number of cited references is still not very impressive for an article in such a prestigious journal as "Sustainability".
Good Luck,
Reviewer
Author Response
In my opinion, the number of cited references is still not very impressive for an article in such a prestigious journal as "Sustainability".
Reply: Some high-level references related to this study were added to the revised manuscript, and the comparative discussion and analysis with the results of our research were carried out. In addition, we checked the whole manuscript to avoid grammatical mistakes and typos.
Thereferences are as follows:
[43]Huo, TF; Cao, RJ; Xia, NN; Hu, X; Cai, WG; Liu, BS.Spatial correlation network structure of China's building carbon emissions and its driving factors: A social network analysis method[J].Journal Of Environmental Management, 2022, 115808. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.115808
[44]Qiu, SL; Wang, ZL; Liu, S.The policy outcomes of low-carbon city construction on urban green development: Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment conducted in China[J].Sustainable Citiesand Society,2021, 66, 102699. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2020.102699
[46]Ke, N; Lu, XH; Zhang, XP; Kuang, B; Zhang, YW.Urban land use carbon emission intensity in China under the “double carbon” targets: spatiotemporal patterns and evolution trend[J].Environmental Scienceand Pollution Research,2023,30(6):18213-18226. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-23294-0
[47]Wang, T; Li, HB.Have regional coordinated development policies promoted urban carbon emission efficiency?—the evidence from the urban agglomerations in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River[J].Environmental Scienceand Pollution Research,2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-24915-4
[52] Shen, RJ; Huang, SQ; Yang, SB. Regional industrial redistribution and carbon emissions: a dynamic analysis for China[J] Climate Policy. 2022. https://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2022.2161980
[53] Wang, M; Wang, Y; Wu, YM; Yue, XL; Wang, MJ; Hu, PP.Identifying the spatial heterogeneity in the effects of the construction land scale on carbon emissions: Case study of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, China[J]. Environmental Research, 2022, 212, 113397. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2022.113397
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
According to me, the current status of the paper can be accepted for publication.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer, I have checked and modified the English language and style.
Some high-level references related to this study were added to the revised manuscript.
