Institute of Circular Economy, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100124, China.
Chinese Academy for Environmental Planning, Beijing 100045, China.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Dec 3;19(23):16208. doi: 10.3390/ijerph192316208.
Carbon emissions trading is a market-based tool for solving environmental issues. This study used a difference-in-differences (DID) approach to estimate China's carbon trading pilots to reduce PM concentrations. The results of this quasi-natural experiment show that the carbon trading policy effectively reduces PM by 2.7 μg/m. We used a propensity score matching (PSM-DID) method to minimize selection bias to construct a treatment and a control group. The results show the policy effect is robust, with a PM concentration reduction of 2.6 μg/m. Furthermore, we employed a series of robustness checks to support our findings, which notably indicate that the effect of carbon trading on reducing PM differs across regions over the years. The western region of China tends to be the most easily affected region, and the early years of carbon trading show slightly greater reduction effects. Our findings provide valuable policy implications for establishing and promoting carbon trading in China and other countries.
碳排放交易是解决环境问题的一种基于市场的工具。本研究采用双重差分法（DID）估计中国碳交易试点对降低 PM 浓度的影响。准自然实验的结果表明，碳交易政策能有效降低 2.7μg/m 的 PM。我们使用倾向得分匹配（PSM-DID）方法来最小化选择偏差，构建处理组和对照组。结果表明政策效果稳健，能降低 2.6μg/m 的 PM 浓度。此外，我们进行了一系列稳健性检验来支持研究结果，特别表明碳交易对降低 PM 的影响因地区和年份而异。中国西部地区往往是最容易受到影响的地区，碳交易的早期阶段显示出略微更大的减排效果。我们的研究结果为中国和其他国家建立和推广碳交易提供了有价值的政策启示。
