Does industrial transfer within urban agglomerations promote dual control of total energy consumption and energy intensity?

As the world's largest energy consumer, China has set the dual goal of controlling both its total energy consumption and intensity in the 13th Five-Year Plan. As one of the most economically active types of regional units in China, urban agglomerations, composed of adjacent cities with close trade interlinks, play a vital role in energy consumption. Existing studies have provided empirical evidence of industrial transfer as a consequence of urban agglomerations, while a few have focused on whether such industrial transfers could promote the dual goal of controlling both total volume of energy consumption and intensity of all the cities within an urban agglomeration. To bring clarity to this issue, this paper attempts to measure industrial transfer and its impact on total energy consumption and intensity of the Beijing Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration by developing a multi-regional input-output model. The results indicate there is mutual industrial transfer between any two cities within the urban agglomeration. Consequently, total energy consumption has increased by 6258.78 thousand tons of standard coal equivalent while energy intensity has declined by 0.19 tons coal equivalent/thousand Yuan. Finally, a few policy recommendations about dual control of total energy consumption and intensity for urban agglomerations have been proposed. Our study enhances understanding of the critical role of industrial transfer in executing dual control of total energy consumption and energy intensity of urban agglomerations, thus assisting policymakers in finding ways to achieve sustainable urban transitions. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.