Abstract
With ecological civilization becoming an increasingly high profile topic, terms such as carbon neutrality and carbon markets have entered the research landscape. Carbon prices are the core of carbon markets. After analyzing the eight carbon trading markets in China, this paper finds that carbon prices are poorly balanced, i.e., they vary widely between pilots. Regional carbon prices show a discrete distribution, and regions with better carbon market development do not have a spatial demonstration effect on neighboring regions. Therefore, in the initial stage of China’s unified carbon trading market, the mandatory control threshold amount should be lowered to allow more enterprises can participate in emission reduction. Reliance on nonclean energy should be weakened, investment in environmental protection and emission reduction should be strengthened, the proportion of carbon offset in forestry should be increased, and a carbon tax should be gradually introduced. The paper’s overall aim is to bridge regional barriers and narrow differences to achieve a smooth transition from pilot regions to national and global carbon markets.
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Funding
We are grateful to the National Natural Science Foundation of China for the support of the project “A Method for Measuring Ecological Civilization with Threshold and Level Two-Index” (no. 71673136) and the project of the Ministry of Education of China for Research on Major Topics in Philosophy and Social Sciences (no. 19JZD023).
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Huijuan Wu: methodology, investigation, data collection and analysis, writing—original draft. Zhiguang Zhang: conceptualization, funding acquisition and manuscript revision. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Highlights
• The price of the eight carbon trading pilots in China presents discrete distribution, and the regional differences are too large to form an integrated national and international carbon market.
• The driving demonstration effect of high-cluster pilot area on low-cluster pilot area has not yet formed.
• Regional emission reduction policies and environmental protection input have spatial spillover effects on carbon prices.
• It is the first time to use the method of geographical economics to discuss the differences and driving factors of carbon pilot regions.
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Wu, H., Zhang, Z. Regional differences in carbon trading prices and their spatially driven mechanisms: evidence from China. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 82799–82811 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-21613-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-21613-z