Spatial-Temporal Evolution and Cross-Industry Synergy of Carbon Emissions: Evidence from Key Industries in the City in Jiangsu Province, China

Cross-industry synergistic emission reduction has become a new strategy for achieving a carbon emissions peak and carbon neutrality. To explore the typical spatial distribution and cross-industry synergy effect of carbon emissions in key industries, this paper analyzes the carbon emissions of coal and power industries in Jiangsu Province from 2006 to 2020 using the empirical orthogonal function (EOF) and a panel vector autoregressive (PVAR) model. The results show that: (1) The distribution of coal resources determines the distribution of carbon emissions in the coal industry. Carbon emissions in the power industry have two typical distributions: consistent changes in cities and a "south-north" inverse phase, with a cumulative variance contribution rate of 86.74%. (2) The impulse response of carbon emissions from the coal industry to the power industry is >0 in the first period. There is a synergistic relationship of carbon emissions from the energy consumption side to the energy production side. (3) The shock effect of carbon emissions on economic development is >0. In resource-based cities, economic development explains about 2% of carbon emission fluctuations in the coal industry and 9.9% in the power industry, which is only 2% in non-resource-based cities. Carbon emissions would promote economic development. However, the impact of economic development on them varies significantly by industry and region. These findings can provide scientific support for developing differentiated measures to carbon emissions reduction and serve as an important reference role for other regions to promote collaborative carbon emission reduction in key industries.