Impact of Environmental Regulation and Industrial Agglomeration on Carbon Emissions in the Yangtze River Economic Belt

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Carbon emission reduction is a hot topic in the world today. This paper discusses the influence mechanism of industrial agglomeration and environmental regulation on carbon emission by using spatial econometric model, which is innovative to some extent and draws some useful conclusions. However, this article has not reached the standard of publication. Maybe my suggestion can help you.

1. The author should make clear innovation or original contribution in the introduction. Please refer to the paper below. Ma, Q, Jia, P, Sun, C, et al. Dynamic evolution trend of comprehensive transportation green efficiency in China -- From a spatio-temporal interaction perspective[J]. Journal of Geographical Sicences, 2022, 32(3): 477-498.

2. Literature review lists a large number of references and expounds the research methods, contents and main achievements of the literature, but there is a lack of literature summary. It is suggested that the author summarize the development context and evolution trend of related research, including methods, perspectives and evaluation units, on the basis of combing the literature.

3. In section 2.2, the article puts forward the innovation of this paper, which is abrupt and has no connection with the previous content. It is suggested that the innovation should be put in the introduction. In addition, it is necessary to review the literature, point out the shortcomings of the current research, and lead to the research content of this paper.

4. In Figure 3, the results of 2010 and 2020 are exactly the same, which can not reflect the evolution process of industrial agglomeration, or the level of industrial agglomeration in various region has not changed during the study period. Maybe a line chart or histogram can reflect the difference between 2010 and 2020.

5. The author divides the industrial agglomeration level into three categories: high, normal and low. What is the basis for classification? The article should explain the ranges of values corresponding to these three types. The same problem exists in Figure 4 and Figure 5.

6. There are many spelling mistakes in this article. For example, in line 99, the word "schools" should be "scholars. It is suggested that the author conduct a thorough search of the full text in order to improve the accuracy of English expression.

English expression need to be improved.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This manuscript uses a spatial Durbin model to diagnose the role of industrial agglomeration and environmental regulation on carbon emission reduction, and the study has some reference value. However, the full text writing needs much improvement and enhancement, as described below:

(1) A large amount of text in the first paragraph tells the significance of the study, but the core theme of the paper does not appear until the last sentence, and the text needs to be refined.

(2) Carbon emission reduction in the industrial sector, the state has issued the "Implementation Plan for Carbon Peaking in the Industrial Sector", so has the implementation plan been proposed for environmental regulation at the industrial aggregation level?

(3) What is the intention of the text of this part of L59-88? What is the relationship with the literature review section? Through the literature review, the specific purpose and ultimate goal to be addressed in this paper is generally proposed, but the review section of this paper fails to raise the issue, and although the review section seems to give several problems to be addressed at the end, there is a lack of backward and forward correspondence, and the logical system of the paper is very unclear.

(4) In the research methodology section, the overall scheme is lacking, and it is not clear what the correlations between the various sections are, and all these models mentioned, are used? Section 3, the presentation of the model methods and data lacks logic, either all are methods or all are data. section 3.4 what is the relationship with the previous 3.1 and 3.2?

(5) Carbon emission data, what is the granularity of the statistical yearbook data? County level, provincial level or enterprise level? What is the source of data in Table 2, please give literature. Also, if the IPCC guidelines parameters are fully adopted, there may be a problem of inapplicability of the parameters, which is very critical, especially if there are factors such as energy quality improvement, which may bring greater uncertainty.

(6) The title of Section 4, which seems to be presenting the methodology, is not. 

(7) The conclusion of Section 5 lacks a summary of the paper, a discussion of the results of the paper, and a necessary relationship between the recommendations made and the results. The conclusion should be concise and clear, and the current writing style does not show the main points to be made.

(8) The quality of writing throughout the paper needs to be greatly improved.

 

 

 

 

The implementation plan of carbon peaking in industry. http://www.gov.cn/zhengce/zhengceku/2022-08/01/5703910/files/f7edf770241a404c9bc608c051f13b45.pdf

 

This MS was prepared with a very bad structure and logic without a clear literature review, object to be resolved, and the section of results and discussion. The conclusion is not concise and the suggestions is not relative with the results, at least, due to lack a discussion. 

Author Response

Dear reviewer, thank you very much for your valuable comments and suggestions. Based on your suggestions, changes have been made accordingly.

(1) A large amount of text in the first paragraph tells the significance of the study, but the core theme of the paper does not appear until the last sentence, and the text needs to be refined.

The first paragraph and introduction have been extensively revised, starting from the background of the dual carbon policy, the introduction of concepts, and the innovation points of the article.

(2) Carbon emission reduction in the industrial sector, the state has issued the "Implementation Plan for Carbon Peaking in the Industrial Sector", so has the implementation plan been proposed for environmental regulation at the industrial aggregation level?

The implementation plan has been proposed for environmental regulation at the industrial aggregation level. Specific information can be found on this website: http://www.eco.gov.cn/news_info/61276.html. Thank you also to the reviewers for their inspiration. This background has been added to the introduction of this article.

(3) What is the intention of the text of this part of L59-88? What is the relationship with the literature review section? Through the literature review, the specific purpose and ultimate goal to be addressed in this paper is generally proposed, but the review section of this paper fails to raise the issue, and although the review section seems to give several problems to be addressed at the end, there is a lack of backward and forward correspondence, and the logical system of the paper is very unclear.

This section is mainly aimed at introducing the two topics of environmental regulation and industrial agglomeration, and the literature review section mentioned by the reviewer has also been modified accordingly. It not only summarizes the research status but also proposes the research objectives of this article, corresponding to the innovation points in the introduction. The specific modifications are as follows: 

Throughout existing research, most literature has conducted in-depth research on the impact of industrial agglomeration or environmental regulation on carbon emissions, and has formed basic research directions and mainstream perspectives. However, there are still the following shortcomings. Firstly, the existing research on environmental regulations and quantitative carbon emission indicators lacks a comprehensive and standardized system. Secondly, there is very little literature on the impact of industrial agglomeration, environmental regulation, and carbon emissions from the dual perspectives of industrial agglomeration and environmental regulation on carbon emissions within the same research framework. Thirdly, the current research system lacks an in-depth analysis of the impact of industrial agglomeration and environmental regulations on the spatial effects of carbon emissions. In view of the above shortcomings, this paper takes the Yangtze River Economic Belt as the research object, improves the measurement methods of relevant indicators, and deeply excavates the internal correlation among carbon emissions, industrial agglomeration, and environmental regulation. This has important practical significance and practical value for improving inter-regional industrial agglomeration, reducing environmental pollution and carbon emission intensity, and providing useful policy enlightenment for the realization of national carbon neutrality and carbon peak goals.

(4) In the research methodology section, the overall scheme is lacking, and it is not clear what the correlations between the various sections are, and all these models mentioned, are used? Section 3, the presentation of the model methods and data lacks logic, either all are methods or all are data. section 3.4 what is the relationship with the previous 3.1 and 3.2?

Thank you for the reviewer's suggestion. The overall scheme has been added to the research methodology. Sections 3.1 to 3.3 correspond to the measurement methods for variables, and section 3.4 is a spatial econometric model method. Only by measuring the variables can spatial econometric analysis be conducted. Therefore, a progressive relationship has been presented. The specific modifications are as follows: 

This section mainly introduces the measurement methods of various variables and the models and data used in the article. The article measures the explanatory variable and the dependent variable based on the indicator measurement analysis method and then uses the measured data to conduct a significance analysis of the spatial econometric model. The specific plan is as follows: Section 3.1 introduces the use of location entropy to measure industrial agglomeration. Section 3.2 introduces the use of the entropy method to measure environmental regulation indicators. Section 3.3 introduces the calculation formula for the carbon emission coefficient. Section 3.4 introduces the spatial econometric model used in the article.

(5) Carbon emission data, what is the granularity of the statistical yearbook data? County level, provincial level or enterprise level? What is the source of data in Table 2, please give literature. Also, if the IPCC guidelines parameters are fully adopted, there may be a problem of inapplicability of the parameters, which is very critical, especially if there are factors such as energy quality improvement, which may bring greater uncertainty.

The relevant data used for carbon emissions are inter-provincial data within the Yangtze River Economic Belt region, which has been annotated in the text. The data in Table 2 refer to the internationally recognized carbon emission coefficient measurement algorithm, which can be found on this website:

https://wenku.baidu.com/view/d48b275659cfa1c7aa00b52acfc789eb172d9ebe.html?_wkts_=1683186212850&bdQuery=%E7%A2%B3%E6%8E%92%E6%94%BE%E7%B3%BB%E6%95%B0. The method provided by IPCC is authoritative and has been cited in a large number of literature. The article also states in section 3.4.

(6) The title of Section 4, which seems to be presenting the methodology, is not.

The fourth section is the spatial econometric analysis section of the article, and the title has been changed to spatial econometric analysis.

(7) The conclusion of Section 5 lacks a summary of the paper, a discussion of the results of the paper, and a necessary relationship between the recommendations made and the results. The conclusion should be concise and clear, and the current writing style does not show the main points to be made.

Thank you for the reviewer's suggestion. A summary of the experimental results has been added to the conclusion section, and relevant suggestions have been made based on the conclusion. The suggestions have also been modified accordingly.

(8) The quality of writing throughout the paper needs to be greatly improved.

The article provides a comprehensive overview. We got a native English speaker to review the entire work and fix the expressions.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Although the subject of the article is interesting, this paper should be modified for the following reasons:

1. The authors need to revise the abstract by including the research problem, objective and main results, and research recommendations that are practically attainable. More numerical results should be included in the abstract.

2. The keywords should not overlap with the title.

3. In the introduction section, please provide more information about the study's novelty. Which gap in the literature does the study aim to fill? The limitations of this work and its novelty should be highlighted more. The contributions and novelties should be explicit.

4. Which methods did you use to evaluate the spatial-temporal of industrial agglomeration? (Kriging, IDW, RBF, etc.). Which software did you use for the spatial analysis? (ArcGIS?) Please justify.

5. A more comparative interpretation could be expected in the paper. The discussion section should discuss similarities and differences between previous studies and the reasons for them should be pointed out. Regrettably, I could not find these discussions in the article.

 

6. What are the limitations and future directions of this study? This point should be highlighted somewhere in the text of the manuscript.

The text contains some occasional grammatical problems. It may need the attention of someone fluent in the English language to enhance readability.

Author Response

Dear reviewer, thank you very much for your valuable comments and suggestions. Based on your suggestions, changes have been made accordingly.

1. The authors need to revise the abstract by including the research problem, objective and main results, and research recommendations that are practically attainable. More numerical results should be included in the abstract.

Thank you for the reviewer's suggestion. The abstract section has been revised to mainly cover the research background, research methods, and research conclusions.

 

2. The keywords should not overlap with the title.

Keywords: Yangtze River Economic Belt; Indicator measurement; spatial measurement; carbon emission

 

3. In the introduction section, please provide more information about the study's novelty. Which gap in the literature does the study aim to fill? The limitations of this work and its novelty should be highlighted more. The contributions and novelties should be explicit.

Thank you for the reviewer's suggestion. The introduction has been revised, starting from three parts: background introduction, innovative points of the article, and article structure. Specific modifications are as follows: 

Based on current research, both industrial agglomeration and environmental regulation have a certain impact on environmental pollution and carbon emissions. Therefore, this study on the relationship between these three factors is of great significance for the current research system and the implementation of dual carbon policies. In addition, this article has the following innovative points in the research process: firstly, in terms of research content, the article studies the impact of industrial agglomeration and environmental regulation on carbon emissions from a dual perspective, expanding the analysis of factors affecting carbon emissions. Secondly, in terms of indicator selection, this article combines the experience of scholars and adopts comprehensive indicators for measurement, making the data more authentic and stable. Thirdly, in terms of research objects, the article’s research object is the important strategic development region of China — the Yangtze River Economic Belt. The YREB spans the three major regions of East, West, and Central China, and is one of the three major strategies implemented by the central government. It is a globally influential inland economic belt, a coordinated development belt for interaction and cooperation between East, Central, and West, and a comprehensive opening belt for both domestic and foreign development along the coast, rivers, and borders. It is also a leading demonstration belt for ecological civilization construction. Therefore, conducting research on it has certain representativeness and can provide certain guidance for the carbon reduction of entire China.

 

4. Which methods did you use to evaluate the spatial-temporal of industrial agglomeration? (Kriging, IDW, RBF, etc.). Which software did you use for the spatial analysis? (ArcGIS?) Please justify.

The spatiotemporal analysis is carried out through the spatiotemporal evolution map drawn by Arcgis10.2, while the spatial analysis is carried out through Stata16 for significance analysis. These have been annotated in the article.

 

5. A more comparative interpretation could be expected in the paper. The discussion section should discuss similarities and differences between previous studies and the reasons for them should be pointed out. Regrettably, I could not find these discussions in the article.

The experimental conclusions of the article have been compared based on previous studies, such as Cheng and Wang. At the same time, relevant summaries have been added in the conclusion and relevant suggestions have been proposed.

 

6. What are the limitations and future directions of this study? This point should be highlighted somewhere in the text of the manuscript.

The limitations and future directions of the research have been pointed out at the end of the article, as follows: 

Overall, this article delves into the spatial effects of industrial agglomeration and environmental regulation and proposes feasible suggestions. However, there are still the following shortcomings. Firstly, considering the availability of data, this article selected inter-provincial data from the Yangtze River Economic Belt for research, without exploring data from prefecture-level cities. Secondly, although this paper studies the spatial effects of industrial agglomeration, environmental regulation, and carbon emissions, there is a lack of research on the mesomeric effect. The research group will conduct in-depth research on these aspects in the future.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

The panel data of 15 provinces and cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) from 2010 to 2020 were used to analyze and empirically test the mechanism of environmental regulation and industrial agglomeration on carbon emissions and the regulatory effect among them. On the whole, the study lacks innovative ideas, and I have some major concerns about this manuscript. 

1) No theoretical framework. The  manuscript claims “This paper constructs a theoretical framework for the relationship between environmental regulation, industrial agglomeration, and carbon emissions”， while I didn't see it in the article.

2) Surprising empirical findings. The manuscript's findings contradict existing theories and the basis of most literature, most of which argue that environmental regulation leads to increased productivity and lower carbon emissions. This research has made novel findings, but it lacks a convincing theoretical analysis.

3) Too bad the literature review. The manuscript lists a range of literature, but does not summarize the literature and does not discuss the reasons for the differences in the conclusions of the literature. In addition, how does this study contribute to existing research.

4) The econometrics settings are arbitrary. The choice of control variables is too arbitrary, the level of economic development need not control? 11 individuals were not suitable for spatial econometric analysis.

5) There are many types of environmental regulation, and this study selected a comprehensive indicator, which has no contribution to the existing literature. I suggest that this manuscript construct market-based regulation, imperative regulation, and so on.

6) Mechanism analysis is lacking, and this manuscript is making innovations in the mechanism.

Moderate editing of English language

Author Response

Dear reviewer, thank you very much for your valuable comments and suggestions. Based on your suggestions, changes have been made accordingly.

1)No theoretical framework. The manuscript claims“This paper constructs a theoretical framework for the relationship between environmental regulation, industrial agglomeration, and carbon emissions”，while I didn't see it in the article.

This was accidentally written incorrectly, and in addition, the abstract has been modified according to the structure and content of the article. The specific modifications are as follows: 

Carbon reduction is an important aspect of achieving high-quality environmental development, and environmental regulation and industrial agglomeration are important ways to affect carbon emissions. Therefore, studying the relationship between industrial agglomeration, environmental regulation, and carbon emissions has important theoretical and practical significance. Firstly, the article adopts the method of location entropy to measure the indicators of industrial agglomeration. Secondly, the article proposes an environmental regulation indicator system based on the experience of previous scholars and measures the environmental regulation indicators using the entropy method. Next, the article uses eight types of energy consumption to measure carbon emissions based on the carbon emission coefficient method provided by the IPCC. Finally, based on the Moran index, the spatial correlation of carbon emissions levels in various regions of the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) was tested. A spatial econometric model was introduced to explore the relationship between industrial agglomeration, environmental regulation, and carbon emissions at a deeper level, and the following conclusions were drawn: (1) The regression coefficient of the spatial term of industrial agglomeration on carbon emissions is 0.848, which is significantly positive at the 10% level, indicating that under the influence of spatial effects, the industrial agglomeration has a significant promoting effect on carbon emissions. (2) The regression coefficient of the spatial term of environmental regulation on carbon emissions is -0.011, which is significantly negative at the 10% level, indicating that environmental regulation has an inhibitory effect on carbon emissions under the influence of spatial effects. Based on the above conclusions, useful suggestions have been provided for optimizing industrial structure, improving environmental regulation levels, and alleviating carbon emissions issues.

 

2)Surprising empirical findings.The manuscript's findings contradict existing theories and the basis of most literature, most of which argue that environmental regulation leads to increased productivity and lower carbon emissions. This research has made novel findings, but it lacks a convincing theoretical analysis.

This is not a surprising discovery, as multiple pieces of literature have elucidated the situation of the green paradox (Huang 2023). The green paradox hypothesis suggests that environmental policies aimed at reducing emissions may actually lead to an increase in pollution emissions, thus questioning the effectiveness of environmental policies. Moreover, considering spatial effects, environmental regulations still contribute to carbon reduction, which is consistent with general conclusions. In order to provide a better explanation, the article provides a more specific summary of the results and introduces the viewpoints of relevant scholars for analysis and comparison.

 

3)Too bad the literature review. The manuscript lists a range of literature, but does not summarize the literature and does not discuss the reasons for the differences in the conclusions of the literature. In addition, how does this study contribute to existing research.

The literature review has been revised to first list the relevant research status and summarizes it, then point out the current research shortcomings, and finally introduce the contributions made by the article to address these shortcomings, corresponding to the innovation points in the introduction. The specific modifications are as follows: 

Throughout existing research, most literature has conducted in-depth research on the impact of industrial agglomeration or environmental regulation on carbon emissions and has formed basic research directions and mainstream perspectives. However, there are still the following shortcomings. Firstly, the existing research on environmental regulations and quantitative indicators of carbon emissions lacks a certain comprehensive and standardized system. Secondly, there is very little literature on the impact of industrial agglomeration, environmental regulation, and carbon emissions from the dual perspectives of industrial agglomeration and environmental regulation on carbon emissions within the same research framework. Thirdly, the current research system lacks an in-depth analysis of the impact of industrial agglomeration and environmental regulations on the spatial effects of carbon emissions. In view of the above shortcomings, this paper takes the Yangtze River Economic Belt as the research object, improves the measurement methods of relevant indicators, and deeply excavates the internal correlation among carbon emissions, industrial agglomeration, and environmental regulation. This has important practical significance and practical value for improving inter-regional industrial agglomeration, reducing environmental pollution and carbon emission intensity, and providing useful policy enlightenment for the realization of national carbon neutrality and carbon peak goals.

 

4)The econometrics settings are arbitrary. The choice of control variables is too arbitrary, the level of economic development need not control?11 individuals were not suitable for spatial econometric analysis.

Thank you for the reviewer's suggestions. The shortcomings in this section have been pointed out and explained at the end of the article, and research will be conducted in these areas in the future.

 

5)There are many types of environmental regulation, and this study selected a comprehensive indicator, which has no contribution to the existing literature. I suggest that this manuscript construct market-based regulation, imperative regulation, and so on.

Because location entropy itself is a measurement method for comprehensive indicators, this article also refers to the ideas of multiple literatures to measure environmental regulation indicators. The purpose of this is to select indicators with the support of literature, and the measured data is more comprehensive and stable.

 

6)Mechanism analysis is lacking, and this manuscript is making innovations in the mechanism.

Thank you for the reviewer's suggestion. The article has included explanations of the relevant impact in the introduction, conclusion, and other revisions.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Some specific comments

1. Keywords are repeated in title elements, which is not an error but it would be more advantageous (for the effectiveness of indexing tools) if the words used in the title and in the list of keywords were different.

2. The Introduction and Literature review section should be more concise, and the key points should be highlighted.

2. Where is the caption of the Result section? Line 303, the formula and the related introduction to the method should be moved to the Section 3 Models, methods, and data.

3. The structure of the Results section is not clear. The description and explanation of Table 5 are lacked.

4. The plotting scale bars on Figure3-5 are not correct. As shown in Figure3-5, there is no difference between 2010 and 2020 as to the spatial pattern of industrial agglomeration, industrial agglomeration, and carbon emissions.

5. General: Is the approach viable for all regions and all periods? What are the limitations of this study? The Discussion section was lacked.

6. I miss more emphasis on the main contribution of the current study compared to similar studies should be highlighted; it should be done in the discussion section. What are the uncertainties in the analysis? Not shown in the discussion section.

7. Overall language is fine but should be carefully revised throughout the text.

7. Overall language is fine but should be carefully revised throughout the text.

Author Response

Dear reviewer, thank you very much for your valuable comments and suggestions. Based on your suggestions, changes have been made accordingly.

1. Keywords are repeated in title elements, which is not an error but it would be more advantageous (for the effectiveness of indexing tools) if the words used in the title and in the list of keywords were different.

Thank you for the reviewer's suggestion. This has been revised based on another reviewer's reference suggestions.

2. The Introduction and Literature review section should be more concise, and the key points should be highlighted.

These parts have been modified accordingly, and corresponding central sentences have been added to highlight the key points.

3. Where is the caption of the Result section? Line 303, the formula and the related introduction to the method should be moved to the Section 3 Models, methods, and data.

Currently, the article has added a title for the results section, and the formulas and methods section has been moved to section 3.

4. The structure of the Results section is not clear. The description and explanation of Table 5 are lacked.

The title of the results section has been added, and Table 5 has been explained according to the reviewer's suggestions.

5. The plotting scale bars on Figure3-5 are not correct. As shown in Figure3-5, there is no difference between 2010 and 2020 as to the spatial pattern of industrial agglomeration, industrial agglomeration, and carbon emissions.

The differences in industrial agglomeration, environmental regulation, and carbon emissions between 2010 and 2020 were plotted using four levels of color and ArcGis software in Figures 3-5. The scale adopts the default effect, and there may be some errors when the image is reduced. Please refer to the drawing in this literature for details: An Analysis of Agricultural Production Efficiency of Yangtze River Economic Belt Based on a Three-Stage DEA Malmquist Model.

6. General: Is the approach viable for all regions and all periods? What are the limitations of this study? The Discussion section was lacked.

The discussion and shortcomings are placed at the end of the conclusion and discussion. The article elaborates on several shortcomings and delves deeper into them in subsequent research.

7. I miss more emphasis on the main contribution of the current study compared to similar studies should be highlighted; it should be done in the discussion section. What are the uncertainties in the analysis? Not shown in the discussion section.

Thank you for the reviewer's suggestion. This article has added a comparison of relevant literature in the conclusion section and highlighted certain achievements and contributions.

8. Overall language is fine but should be carefully revised throughout the text.

This article has made certain modifications to the entire text. We got a native English speaker to review the entire work to polish the language.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors revised the article based on reviewer feedback, which significantly improved. The article is acceptable for publication. 

Minor editing of English language required

Author Response

Dear reviewer, thank you very much for your valuable comments and suggestions. Based on your suggestions, changes have been made accordingly.

 

Minor editing of English language required

Thank you for the reviewer's suggestion. The language of the article has been modified accordingly. We got a native English speaker to review the entire work to polish the language.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

All my concerns have been responsed.

All my concerns have been responsed

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your affirmation！

Best Wishes to You!