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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Environmental Economics and Management
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2025.1545626
This article is part of the Research Topic Sustainable Energy Governance in the Context of Global Climate Change: Technologies, Mechanisms and Strategies View all 15 articles
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The Yangtze River Economic Belt is a critical strategic region for China's economic development. Accurately assessing the energy transition level of the Yangtze River Economic Belt and identifying key barriers in the region are essential for achieving China's carbon neutrality goals. Currently, technical assessments of urban-scale energy transitions are limited, with insufficient consideration of the comprehensive contributions of supporting transformations to the broader energy transition. This study develops a comprehensive evaluation framework for urban energy transition based on six dimensions: environmental pollution, energy consumption, environmental governance, resource endowment, technological innovation, and policy guidance. Through the integrated index model and barrier degree model, a quantitative analysis is conducted to explore the dynamics and potential mechanisms of energy transition in the Yangtze River Economic Belt. The results show: (1) The overall level of urban energy transition increased by 35.86%, with persistent inter-city disparities, though their intensity has been alleviated. Over time, spatial differentiation has gradually weakened, transitioning from a core-periphery pattern to a more balanced distribution. (2)The sample cities were categorized based on four criteria: geographical region, urban size, energy transition level, and the developmental stages of resource-based cities. Under each of these four criteria, the city types with the highest energy transition performance were identified as eastern cities, large cities, high-level energy transition cities, and regenerated cities. (3) Within the entire sample, the contributions of environmental governance, resource endowment, and policy guidance to the resistance of the transition are 20.64%, 18.75%, and 18.34%, respectively. The obstacle degree value for environmental pollution is the lowest, indicating that progress in this area could further support urban energy transition efforts. This study establishes an analytical framework for evaluating urban-scale energy transitions and provides the first systematic assessment of energy transition in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, offering valuable insights applicable to other regions of China and countries or regions with similar socio-economic and developmental contexts.
Keywords: urban energy transition, Obstacle degree analysis, Regional disparities, energy governance, Yangtze River Economic Belt
Received: 15 Dec 2024; Accepted: 18 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Haoran, Jingke, Shixiang, Jun, Ziyuan and Chen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Yan Haoran, School of Public Administration, China University of Geosciences Wuhan, Wuhan, 430074, Hubei Province, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
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