Railway opening and carbon emissions in distressed areas: Evidence from China's state-level poverty-stricken counties.

Although the economic and environmental effects of railways have been well documented, most of these involve economically developed cities and rarely focus on poor and remote counties. Thus, the goal of this paper is to take county-level panel data covering the period 1997–2017 to explore the role of railway opening on carbon emissions in those state-level poverty-stricken (SPS) counties. Compared with SPS counties without opening of railway, those SPS counties with railway opening, especially high-speed railway opening, have achieved significant carbon reduction benefits. The intermediary mechanism reveals that railway opening brings a lot of carbon emissions by promoting economic growth, although they are offset by the low-carbon and environmental protection characteristics of the railway itself. Measures should be taken to avoid environmental damage associated with economic growth brought by railway opening while building and upgrading railway system in SPS counties. • The opening of railways in state-level poverty-stricken counties is regarded as a quasi-natural experiment. • Carbon emission reduction of ordinary-speed railway and high-speed railway is heterogeneous. • The opening of high-speed rail is more conducive to carbon emission reduction. • Emission reduction caused by the railway opening is partially offset by economic growth caused by it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]