Carbon Balance And Horizontal Carbon Compensation In The Yellow River Basin From The Perspective Of Mining Industry Agglomeration

Mitigating climate change has become an important topic of global sustainable development.In September 2020,General Secretary Xi Jinping of the CPC Central Committee solemnly declared to the world that China will strive to peak the carbon dioxide emissions by 2030,and achieve the goal of carbon neutralization by 2060(Hereinafter referred to as "double carbon" target).The Yellow River Basin(YRB)is rich in mineral resources and is known as China’s "energy basin",but its ecological background is fragile and the regional development is uneven.In recent years,with the concentration of China’s mineral resources exploitation and processing industry to the YRB,the imbalance state of regional carbon cycle system has become more and more serious.As the important ecological protective screen and economic zone of China,ecological protection and high-quality development of the YRB has become a major national strategy.The exploitation and utilization of mineral resources has a far-reaching impact on the economic development and ecological environment quality of the YRB.Analyzing the spatiotemporal evolution characteristics and driving factors of mining agglomeration,measuring the carbon balance state of prefecture-level cities,exploring the impact mechanism and spatial spillover effect of mining agglomeration on urban carbon balance,and building a basin-level horizontal carbon compensation scheme linked by upstream and downstream considering the regional equity,which are meaningful to the ecological protection and high-quality development of the YRB under the "double carbon" goal.Based on the literature review about industrial agglomeration,carbon balance and carbon compensation,supported by industrial agglomeration theory,externality theory,"resource curse" theory,ecologically unequal exchange theory and property right theory,and with the visual advantages of geoscience analysis tools,this thesis integrates the methods of qualitative and quantitative analysis to study the carbon balance and horizontal carbon compensation in the YRB from the perspective of mining agglomeration.Main research contents and conclusions in this thesis are as follows.(1)Spatiotemporal evolution characteristics and driving forces of mining industry agglomeration in the YRB.This thesis integrates location quotient,spatial Gini coefficient,exploratory spatial data analysis and standard deviation ellipse to analyze the spatiotemporal evolution characteristics of mining industry agglomeration in the YRB from 2003 to 2018,then explores the driving forces by the Geodetector model.The results are as follows: The agglomeration degree of mining industry in the YRB shows a W-shaped development trend.During the boom period of the resource market from 2003 to 2012,the agglomeration degree decreased to a certain extent,the global financial crisis in 2008 caused a short-term fluctuation.After 2012,with the end of the "golden decade" of global resource market and the implementation of the de-capacity policy,the agglomeration degree increased significantly.The agglomeration degree of mining industry in the middle and upper reaches is significantly higher than the lower reaches,the spatial correlation is gradually enhanced,the “high-high” type cities are concentrated in Shanxi and Shaanxi,and their spatial scope is expanding.The spatial layout of the mining industry in the YRB basically maintains the "east-west" direction,all the mining industry center of the YRB in four observation years are located in Shanxi Province,and the industrial center is generally moving to the northwest.Mineral resources endowment,government intervention,socio-economic development and downstream industrial demand are the core driving forces of mining industry agglomeration in the YRB,there are significant differences in the upper,middle and lower reaches,and the interaction effect between mineral resource endowment and government intervention is the largest in all factors.(2)Spatiotemporal evolution characteristics of carbon balance and decoupling effect with economic growth in the YRB.Based on the provincial night light data and carbon emissions of energy consumption measured by the IPCC method,this thesis constructs the annual light-to-carbon conversion coefficients of each province and estimates the carbon emissions of 90 prefecture-level regions in the YRB from 2003 to2018.Further combining with the city carbon sequestration reflected by net primary productivity(NPP),the carbon balance state and spatiotemporal evolution characteristics in the YRB are studied,and the dynamic relationship between economic growth and carbon environmental pressure is analyzed by the improved Tapio decoupling model.The main findings are as follows: In the study period,carbon emissions in the YRB increased rapidly at first and then slowly,while carbon sequestration showed a slow growth trend.The carbon balance of the YRB was broken for the first time in 2007.Carbon source and sequestration of the YRB are distributed inversely in space.The overall pattern of carbon emissions is "high in the east and low in the west",while the carbon sequestration is just the opposite.Carbon imbalance at prefecture-level city scale mainly occurred in 2003-2008 and carbon deficit rate reached62% in 2018.In addition to the provincial capital cities and individual developed cities in the east,Erdos,Baotou and other resource-based cities were suffering from severe carbon imbalance.Carbon deficit of the YRB shows a significant positive spatial correlation,LISA space-time transition has a strong path locking effect,and undergoes a development process of strong order-disorder-weak order.The decoupling rate of economic growth and carbon environmental pressure in the YRB increases gradually,and the weak decoupling is the main type.The decoupling types were clearly differentiated after 2013,and the decoupling state of mining agglomeration areas and ethnic minority agglomeration areas deteriorated.(3)Empirical study on the "carbon curse" and environmental inequity of mining agglomeration areas in the YRB.Based on the panel data of 90 prefecture level cities in the YRB from 2003 to 2018,a spatial mediation effect model is constructed to explore the impact mechanism of mining agglomeration on carbon balance from the perspective of spatial spillover.The results show that: Mining agglomeration significantly worsens the carbon balance of mining agglomeration cities,but improves the carbon balance of surrounding cities.Mining agglomeration is conducive to the improvement of the overall carbon balance of the YRB.The "carbon curse" hypothesis is valid in the YRB,and mining agglomeration city has a significant profit and loss deviation characteristics of "energy and resources are exported outside,while carbon emissions and ecological damage remain inside".Mining agglomeration worsens the carbon balance of the mining cities by hindering industrial upgrading,inhibiting technological progress and destroying the carbon sequestration capacity.Among them,the mediation effect of industrial upgrading is the largest,which is the key path of low-carbon transformation in mining areas.In terms of time heterogeneity,the impact of mining agglomeration on urban carbon balance: boom period(2003-2012)> transition period(2013-2018).The profit and loss deviation characteristics of mining agglomeration areas are significant in the boom period,but not in the transition period.In the boom period of resource market,three mediation effects all exist,while in the transition period,mining agglomeration worsens the urban carbon balance mainly by hindering industrial upgrading.In terms of spatial heterogeneity,the force of mining agglomeration on urban carbon balance:middle reaches > lower reaches > upper reaches.The profit and loss deviation characteristics of mining agglomeration areas are significant in the lower reaches but not in the middle and upper reaches.There are some differences in the path of mining agglomeration deteriorating carbon balance.After replacing the 0-1 adjacency weight with the inverse distance weight,the main results are still robust.(4)Horizontal carbon compensation at prefecture level in the YRB considering the environmental equity of mining agglomeration areas.Considering the profit and loss deviation characteristics of "energy and resources are exported outside,while carbon emissions and ecological damage remain inside" in mining agglomeration areas,the flow direction and intensity of resources among cities in the YRB are simulated based on the gravity model,and the local carbon emissions generated by the export of energy and resources in the resource-based cities are transferred to the non-resource-based cities.Then the relative deprivation coefficient is used to redistribute the historical carbon emission rights based on the principles of equal per capita,equal output,historical emission,carbon sequestration capacity and equal space.Finally identify the subject and object of carbon compensation based on the revised carbon account,and the carbon compensation value and priority of each city are calculated combined with the standard carbon price.The main conclusions are as follows: 1661.57 million tons of historical carbon emissions in the resource-based cities are transferred to the non-resource-based cities under the perspective of consumer responsibility.Top 10 cities of the carbon emission reduction are mainly the mature and growing resource-based cities,and the top 10 of the increment of non-resource-based cities are mainly provincial capital cities.Compared with the carbon emission right distribution under the single principle,a set of weight scheme "tailored" for cities based on the relative deprivation coefficient can significantly improve the fairness and acceptance of the distribution results.After correction,the range of carbon deficit is reduced from[-121611,177503] to [-79489,117583],the differences between cities are appropriately weakened,and the subject and object status of individual cities in carbon compensation is changed.The carbon compensation at prefecture level in the YRB generally presents a spatial pattern of "the southwest should be compensated by the northeast,and the upper reaches should be compensated by the middle and lower reaches".At the level of cities,the maximum payment in Zhengzhou is 59967.08 million yuan,and the maximum compensation received by Haixi Prefecture is 40539.42 million yuan.At the level of provinces,Qinghai obtains the maximum compensation of 109768.99 million yuan,and Shandong needs to pay the maximum amount of 181493.81 million yuan.The underdeveloped and ecological surplus areas in the upper reaches represented by Yushu should be compensated first,and the developed cities in the lower reaches with less impact on city’s economic development,like Weihai,shall be the first to pay.(5)Low carbon transformation strategy of mining agglomeration areas in the YRB.This thesis summarizes the typical characteristics of mining areas in the YRB,namely "dense distribution,fragile ecology,diverse types and backward economy",and puts forward the low-carbon transformation development idea of "low-carbon orientation,ecological priority,regional coordination and classified guidance".Then discusses the low-carbon transformation path of mining agglomeration in the YRB from four dimensions of industrial upgrading,technological progress,ecological restoration and regional coordination based on the formation mechanism of “carbon curse”.Finally proposes the corresponding safeguard measures from the aspects of capital,talent,environment and system.Main innovation points of this thesis:(1)This thesis analyzed the spatiotemporal characteristics of mining agglomeration in the YRB by integrating the industrial agglomeration index and spatial analysis method,and established the geographic detector model to detect the driving factors from both global and local perspective,which revealed the spatiotemporal evolution law of mining agglomeration in the YRB.This thesis applied the satellite remote sensing data of night light and net primary productivity(NPP)to evaluate the urban carbon balance state in the YRB,and analyzed the decoupling state between urban economic growth and carbon environmental pressure by improving the Tapio decoupling model considering regional carbon carrying capacity.(2)This thesis proposed the theoretical framework of the impact of mining agglomeration on urban carbon balance,constructed a spatial mediation effect model,and empirically demonstrated the existence and occurrence mechanism of the "carbon curse" in the YRB,as well as the profit and loss deviation characteristics of "energy and resources are exported outside,while carbon emissions and ecological damage remain inside" in mining agglomeration areas.Mining agglomeration worsens the carbon balance of the mining cities by hindering industrial upgrading,inhibiting technological progress and destroying the land carbon sequestration capacity.(3)This thesis put forward a horizontal carbon compensation framework at city level for the YRB.Considering the profit and loss deviation characteristics of "energy and resources are exported outside,while carbon emissions and ecological damage remain inside" in the mining agglomeration areas,this thesis transferred the local carbon emissions generated by the export of energy resources from resource-based cities to non-resource-based cities based on the gravity model,then redistributed the historical carbon emission rights in consideration of the fairness of cities.According to the revised carbon budget,this thesis designed a horizontal carbon compensation scheme at prefecture level for the YRB.