Study On The Regional Cooperation On The Low Carbon Development In The Urban Agglomeration

In the post-industrial era, the global climate issue has been increasingly urgent and critical for the world, and creating a low carbon economy, the concept of which was raised by the UK, has therefore become the choice for most countries to solve the energy crisis and response to the global warming. However, as it is a new and all-round development path, building the low carbon economy requires far more than the concept. It needs the system innovation, the industrial structure adjustment, and the transition to a low carbon life as well. Also, the regional cooperation governance is called for as the climate has no "ownership".The paper is to analyse the low carbon development of urban agglomerations. An urban agglomeration, which is an aggregation of cities and suburbs, is an advanced form of the regional spatial development. In China, the urban agglomerations are the major geographical units active in the inter-regional competition inside the country as well as in the global division of labor and the international competition, thus being of crucial importance for China's sustainable development. As the highest carbon emission areas due to the population and industry aggregation, the urban agglomerations'carbon emission control and low carbon development reveals to be the crux of China's low carbon economy.Firstly, the paper analyses the mode selection in the low carbon development of the urban agglomerations. Due to the current economic growth level, the mode that can only be selected is the "non-equilibrium cooperation development". Thus, the paper establishes a conceptual model on the low carbon development of the urban agglomerations, which consists of three modules:the regional cooperation governance module, the regional cooperation method module, and the regional cooperation mechanism module.Secondly, the paper studies the regional cooperation governance innovation in the urban agglomerations while proceeding with the low carbon development. The innovation is called for mainly in four aspects:the concept, the system, the government functions, and the pattern.Thirdly, the paper gives an analysis of the regional cooperation framework for the low carbon development of the urban agglomerations. The goal of the carbon balance varies with the development of the urban agglomerations, from a positive carbon imbalance to a carbon balance and finally a negative carbon imbalance. Therefore, the primary target of the low carbon development of the urban agglomerations is to achieve the regional carbon balance through the regional cooperation, thus a game analysis of the subject and the behavior of the regional cooperation is implemented. Moreover, a network of the regional cooperation is built from the perspectives of the government, the industry, the technology, the society and the carbon sequestration, and accordingly, a incentive, a guarantee and a restraint mechanism of the regional cooperation is also structured respectively.Fourthly, the paper carries out an empirical analysis taking the Wuhan City Circle as an example. The situation and the achievements of the regional cooperation for the low carbon development in the Circle are presented, and some policy suggestions are put forward as well.