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Exploring the impact of economic modernization on carbon balance is an essential endeavor to achieve carbon neutrality and combat climate change. However, the spatial impact of economic modernization on carbon balance remains ambiguous. Therefore, this study aims to explore the spatial spillover effects of agricultural modernization, industrialization, and urbanization on carbon balance during the economic modernization process in China, taking 30 provinces and cities in China as examples from 2010 to 2021. This study utilizes the spatial Durbin model to derive the following results: In the past decade, the carbon balance ratio has shown a fluctuating and decreasing dynamic evolution trend. There is an increase in regions with serious carbon deficits. Further investigation into the spatial spillover effect of carbon balance unveils that for every 1% increase in the carbon balance ratio of a province, neighboring provinces experience a decrease of 0.833%. Additionally, the spatial spillover effects of the three modernizations in China on the carbon balance ratio behave differently. Agricultural modernization and urbanization demonstrate negative spatial spillover effects on the carbon balance in neighboring regions, while industrialization exerts a significant positive spatial spillover effect on the carbon balance of neighboring regions. Regarding control variables, the level of innovation solely contributes to local carbon balance realization without generating a trickle-down effect, whereas infrastructure development operates inversely. At the same time, there are differences in the spatial effects of agricultural modernization and industrialization on the carbon balance between the eastern region and the central and western regions. The study underscores the importance of economic modernization and development processes focusing on fostering synergistic growth between economic and environmental benefits within both local and neighboring areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the relationship between urbanization, economic growth, industrial transformation, technological change, public services, demographical change, urban and natural environmental changes, and carbon emissions using a dataset of 182 prefecture-level cities in China between 2001 and 2010. Specifically, this paper differs from previous studies in two aspects. First, the extant literature has focused on how economic processes accompanying rapid urbanization affect carbon emissions in urban areas but gives little attention to the other dimensions of urbanization, including social and environmental changes, which may have important effects on carbon emissions. We assessed the effects of 17 key processes accompanying urbanization in a full range of economic, social, and environmental dimensions on carbon dioxide emissions in urban areas. The results showed that social processes accompanied with rapid urbanization had distinct effects on carbon emissions, compared to economic and environmental processes. Specifically, improvement in public services, indicated by education and cultural developments, reduces the increase in carbon emissions during urbanization, while economic growth and urban construction reinforces the growth in carbon emissions. Second, we examined the impact of various urbanization processes on carbon dioxide emissions using a unique dataset of 182 prefecture-level cities that covers a wide span of regions in China. The results of our analyses on the city level have important implications for the formulation of comprehensive policies aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emission in urban areas, focusing on different urbanization processes in economic, social, and environmental phases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]