Urban Population Scaling and CO2 Emissions
Abstract
As the world continues struggling with climate change, it is important to better understand the causes, trends, and beneficial steps that can be taken for improvement. In this paper, we investigate the interplay between a country’s population distribution across urban centers and its environmental footprint. Specifically, we propose a new measure –which we refer to as the “Urban Scaling Factor”– connecting a country’s per-capita CO2 emissions to its level of urbanization. The Urban Scaling Factor is based on a combination of Zipf’s law and the Urban Scaling Hypothesis. With this new factor, we propose a model to determine whether a country would benefit from a shift in its population, either towards increased urbanization or dispersion. Additionally, the model predicts the hypothetical maximum reduction in emissions corresponding to these population shifts.
Subject Classifications: Environmental Science, Earth Science, Data Analytics.
Keywords: CO2 Emissions, Environmental Kuznets Curve, Zipf’s Law
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