**5. Concluding Remarks**

The panel data of Chinese provincial administrative units are classified into four categories according to the widely adopted standard in this paper. In order to explore the causal relationship between new-type urbanization and energy consumption, we employ the PVAR model to investigate this issue and obtain the following conclusions. (1) For provinces in the eastern region, new-type urbanization leads to energy consumption negatively, and energy consumption leads to new-type urbanization positively, which becomes negative over time. For the provinces in the central and northeastern regions, an increase in the level of new-type urbanization does not bring about energy consumption, while the uni-directional causal relationship running from energy consumption to new-type urbanization is similar to provinces in the eastern region. For provinces in the western region, there is negative feedback causality between the two. (2) For provinces in the eastern region, the advantage of energy consumption is larger than its disadvantage in the short run, yet the relationship is the opposite in the long run. For provinces in the central and northeastern regions, the advantages of energy consumption and its disadvantages are similar to provinces in the eastern region. However, for provinces in the western region, the disadvantage of energy consumption may exceed its advantage. These findings are also consistent with the EKC relation. Once a province reaches a high level of new-type urbanization, it may conversely reduce the negative externality of environmental damage related to energy consumption. (3) The impulse response analysis further presents the dynamic relationship between the two. The variance decomposition demonstrates that the effect of energy consumption on new-type is much larger than the effect of new-type urbanization on energy consumption for the provinces in the eastern region, while it is totally the opposite for provinces in the central, northeastern, and western regions. (4) The largest carbon emitter appears in the western region, followed by the northeastern and central regions, and the smallest carbon emitter happens to be in the eastern region. The western region has the highest energy consumption intensity, followed by the northeastern and central regions, and finally the eastern region. The ratio of output value in tertiary industry to real GDP in the eastern region is the highest among the four groups, followed by the northeastern region, the western region, and the central region, and the per capita real GDP in the four groups is the same as the ratio of output value in the tertiary industry to real GDP.

On the basis of our conclusions above, several straightforward policy implications can be put forward. As the causal relationship presents regional heterogeneity, a one-size-for-all energy policy will not work effectively. Our government should take into consideration the different levels of new-type urbanization while implementing an energy consumption policy. Specifically, for provinces in the eastern region, they should spare no effort to promote the level of new-type urbanization and mitigate energy use in the construction of new-type urbanization. For provinces in the central region, energy consumption is not conducive to promoting the level of new-type urbanization, hence they should adopt some conservation policies to avoid the negative externality of environmental damage related to energy consumption. For provinces in the northeastern and western regions, the negative externality of environmental damage related to energy consumption may gradually increase, and they should especially pay attention to cope with the possible environmental damage and take remedial actions. Finally, according to the in-depth analysis of energy-related data, for the provinces in the northeastern and western regions, they should try to raise the efficiency of energy use, so as to reduce carbon emissions. For example, our Chinese government can encourage enterprises to carry out energysaving technologies in the production of goods and services. Additionally, for provinces in the northeastern and western regions, some high-pollution industries may have been encouraged, hence standards have to be strict concerning environmental protection and relevant environmental regulations.

The used methodology in this paper has some shortcomings, which calls for further research. Firstly, the constructed comprehensive urbanization index does not take into consideration the aspect of income inequality due to data availability. A comprehensive urbanization index should be constructed to reflect more about social welfare. Secondly, the empirical study in this paper does not consider the spatial spillover effect when exploring the causal relationship between energy consumption and urbanization. As we all know, both the level of energy consumption and urbanization probably present a spatial autocorrelation relationship, so future studies should employ spatial econometric techniques in this topic to deal with the possible estimation bias of the non-spatial econometric models. Thirdly, the empirical study in this paper is still based on Chinese provincial-level data. As the urban areas are the primary body to promote the urbanization process currently, it is of great value to conduct in-depth investigations at the city level.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, Y.Q.; methodology, Y.Q.; formal analysis, C.C. and Y.G.; data curation, Y.G.; writing—original draft preparation, C.C.; writing—review and editing, C.C. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** Not applicable.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Not applicable.

**Data Availability Statement:** The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
