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Does the EU emissions trading system help reduce PM2.5 damage? A research based on PSM-DID method

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Abstract

Air quality issues, especially haze pollution, have become an important aspect that threatens the sustainable development and health of human beings. Previous studies on the environmental effects of emissions trading system (ETS) mainly focused on carbon emission reduction, instead of focusing on the synergistic governance effect between carbon emission and PM2.5 reduction. Based on the PSM-DID method and the World Development Index (WDI) database, this paper examines whether the EU ETS has a spillover effect on PM2.5 damage reduction, and discusses the related impact mechanisms. The research results show that the EU ETS promotes the reduction of PM2.5 damage, and in different phases of implementation, the impact of the EU ETS on the reduction of PM2.5 damage has a dynamic effect. The robustness test results also show that the research conclusions of this paper are highly reliable. Finally, this paper gives relevant policy suggestions, which can encourage countries to achieve carbon emission reduction targets while helping to reduce PM2.5 damage, and eventually achieve a win–win situation between economic growth and environmental improvement.

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Data availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This work was supported by the Humanities and Social Science Research Project of the Ministry of Education of China (20YJC630138), the Anhui Natural Science Foundation (2008085QG345), the Fundamental Research Funding for Central Universities of China (WK2040000023), the New Liberal Arts Fund of University of Science and Technology of China (YD2040002010) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant number 71974177).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Science and Technology of China, No. 96 Jinzhai Road, 230026, Hefei, People’s Republic of China

    Liang Wan, Shanyong Wang, Jianing Zang, Qiaoqiao Zheng & Wenpei Fang

Authors
  1. Liang Wan
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  2. Shanyong Wang
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  3. Jianing Zang
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  4. Qiaoqiao Zheng
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  5. Wenpei Fang
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Contributions

Liang Wan: Conceptualization, Formal analysis and Writing-original draft;

Shanyong Wang: Methodology, Writing- review and editing;

Jianing Zang: Writing- review and editing, Data curation;

Qiaoqiao Zheng: Writing- review and editing, Data curation;

Wenpei Fang: Writing- review and editing, Data curation.

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Correspondence to Shanyong Wang.

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Wan, L., Wang, S., Zang, J. et al. Does the EU emissions trading system help reduce PM2.5 damage? A research based on PSM-DID method. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 23129–23143 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-17640-x

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