Research Hotspots and Trend Analysis in the Field of Regional Economics and Carbon Emissions since the 21st Century: A Bibliometric Analysis

In recent years, the issue of regional economics and carbon emissions has become a research hotspot in the cross field of economy, environment and ecology. This paper selects the regional economics and carbon emissions related literature collected in the Web of Science (WOS) database as the basis, and uses the bibliometric software Citespace and VOSviewer to visually analyze the time distribution, organization, author and keywords in this research field. This paper provides a more systematic analysis of how different regions of China could achieve carbon emission objectives, from the aspects of regional industrial transformation, energy consumption structure, policy implementation and regional coordinated development. The keywords with high frequency are carbon emissions, economic growth and energy consumption, etc. The research hotspots can be divided into structural decomposition analysis, low-carbon industry transformation path, policy framework and energy efficiency, etc. The results show that future research should strengthen multidisciplinary cross-integration in different universities and institutions. However, based on in-depth analysis, the key factors which affect regional carbon emissions are regional policy implementation, changes in industrial structures, optimization of energy consumption structure and carbon trade market mechanism. Finally, we suggest that institutions and scholars should conduct adequate interdisciplinary and cross-industry cooperation; industrial sector development should consider local endowment; there should greater use of clean energy to optimize the energy consumption structure; and an increase in R&D carbon capture and sequestration technology.