Spatial–Temporal Decoupling of Urban Carbon Emissions and Socioeconomic Development in the Yangtze River Economic Belt

The spatial–temporal pattern, influencing factors and driving variables of carbon emissions are essential considerations for achieving China’s carbon peak and neutrality targets, which support high-quality development. This study was designed to explore and evaluate the spatial–temporal evolutionary characteristics, trends and main influencing factors of carbon emissions in the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB), focusing on the decoupling of carbon emissions and socioeconomic development in the YREB. In total, 11 provinces and key cities were focused on as the research objects of the YREB district Tapio decoupling model, which examined the decoupling relationship between carbon emissions and socioeconomic development. Combined with a geographic detector, the Tapio, Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) and gray prediction models were employed in a comprehensive evaluating pipeline, which was constructed to decouple the main influencing factors and corresponding impacts of carbon emissions. Particularly, the gray prediction model was employed to predict the carbon emission differences in the YREB sub-regions in 2030. The results indicated the following: (1) The total carbon emissions showed a periodic fluctuation and upward trend with obvious spatial differences, and energy consumption was mainly dominated by coal. (2) The center of carbon emissions was located in Hubei Province in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, with a standard deviation ellipse showing a “Southwest–Northeast” trend, and most provinces were concentrated in the L-H (low-high) cluster. (3) The entire YREB had achieved carbon emissions decoupling, but it was mainly in a weak decoupling state. (4) Carbon emissions were significantly affected by the indicator E for economic growth, with the indicators EI for energy consumption and I for the added ratio of GDP also bringing greater impacts on carbon reduction contributions. The carbon emission prediction results indicated that the upper and middle reaches of the YREB were more likely to achieve carbon neutrality.