Abstract
The low-carbon city pilot (LCCP) policy is an important initiative for China to fulfill its international commitment to carbon emission reduction and achieve low-carbon transformation. In this context, this study investigated whether the LCCP policy of China has achieved carbon emission reduction from the production and consumption perspectives and how its underlying mechanism and spatial spillover effect. Using the panel dataset of 285 Chinese prefecture-level cities from 2003 to 2019, this study applied the staggered DID model to examine the effects and its underlying mechanism of the LCCP policy on carbon intensity (CI) and carbon emission per capita (CP). We also conducted heterogeneity and spatial spillover effect analyses using the textual quantification method and spatial DID. Our results show that the LCCP policy effectively reduced CI and CP, but these effects did not appear until the third year of implementation. The above conclusions passed a series of robustness and endogeneity tests. Reducing industrial emissions, improving technological innovation, and optimizing the efficiency of energy usage were three important mechanisms to reduce CI and CP, validating the effectiveness of the LCCP policy. Command-mandatory and voluntary LCCP policy tools achieved better results, and the LCCP policy exerted a significant emission reduction effect on second-tier pilot cities as compared to others. The carbon emission abatement of the LCCP policy has also demonstrated a spatial spillover impact on neighboring cities. This study focused on analyzing the mechanism paths and spatial spillover effects of the LCCP policy impact and provided an important decision-making reference in promoting the LCCP policy for not only China but also other developing countries. Specifically, low-carbon pilot experiences and typical cases should be refined, ways for accelerating the greening and cleaning of energy usage must be explored, and regional joint control and collaborative governance should be established to achieve China’s low-carbon transformation.
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Source: Authors drew the map based on the documents related to the LCCP policy issued by China’s NDRC. The vector map is from the National Geomatics Center of China
Source: The figure was drawn by authors based on the results of running stata17
Source: The figure was plotted by authors based on the results of running stata17
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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.
Abbreviations
- LCCP:
-
Low-carbon city pilot
- CI:
-
Carbon intensity
- CP:
-
Carbon emission per capita
- CO2 :
-
Carbon dioxide
- DID:
-
Difference-in-difference
- PSM-DID:
-
Propensity score matching-DID
- 2SLS:
-
Two-stage least squares
- SDID:
-
Spatial difference-in-difference
- SUTVA:
-
Stable unit treatment value assumption
- NDRC:
-
National Development and Reform Commission
- CNY:
-
Chinese Yuan (currency unit)
- treat :
-
The cross-term of the LCCP policy variable and time dummy variable
- lnpgdp :
-
Economic growth
- lnpd :
-
Population density
- secindp :
-
Industrial structure
- fdip :
-
Foreign direct investment
- eximp :
-
Openness
- scieddp :
-
Science and education
- lnwrcolstu :
-
Human capital
- GDP:
-
Gross domestic product
- VC:
-
Air circulation coefficient
- RDLS:
-
Relief degree of land surface
- lnindSO 2 :
-
Industrial sulfur dioxide emission
- lnindfumes :
-
Industrial fumes emission
- wrlcpat :
-
Low-carbon technology innovation
- scireseap :
-
Scientific technology innovation
- renewstr :
-
Clean energy structure
- energyint :
-
Energy intensity
- nenervehicle :
-
The new energy vehicle subsidy pilot policy
- atomemi :
-
The atmospheric emission limit pilot policy
- cemitra :
-
The carbon emission trading right pilot policy
- control :
-
Command-mandatory LCCP policy tools
- market :
-
Market-economic LCCP policy tools
- voluntary :
-
Voluntary LCCP policy tools
- i :
-
ith Prefecture-level city unit
- t :
-
tth Time
- D i, t0 + k :
-
A series of dummy variables associated with the years of implementation of the LCCP policy
- k :
-
The kth year of the start of LCCP policy
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This research was funded by the National Planning Office of Philosophy and Social Science Foundation of China (No. 16BJL032).
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(1) Huimin Ren: conceptualization, methodology, writing-original draft, and editing. (2) Guofeng Gu: visualization, writing-review, and investigation. (3) Honghao Zhou: resources, writing-review and editing, and supervision. Correspondence to Guofeng Gu.
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Ren, H., Gu, G. & Zhou, H. Assessing the low-carbon city pilot policy on carbon emission from consumption and production in China: how underlying mechanism and spatial spillover effect?. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 71958–71977 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-21005-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-21005-3