College of Environmental Science and Engineering, North China Electric Power University, Beijing, 102206, China.
College of Economic and Management, North China Electric Power University, Beijing, 102206, China.
Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2023 Dec;30(59):124028-124040. doi: 10.1007/s11356-023-31060-z. Epub 2023 Nov 23.
Carbon emission trading policies play a key role in reducing carbon emissions through market-based mechanisms. In the context of China's carbon neutrality goals and carbon peaking targets, it is important to predict and evaluate the effectiveness of such policies. The combined impact of carbon trading policies on carbon emission reduction and economic output has not been well investigated in previous studies. In this study, the impact of carbon emission trading policies on regional carbon emission performance was assessed through mechanism analysis and empirical tests. The mechanism analysis showed that carbon emission intensity reduction relied on three mediating effects: technological innovation incentives, industrial structure optimization, and energy substitution. For the empirical test, the multi-time difference-in-differences (DID) method was adopted to study the impact using panel data from 30 provinces in China between 2005 and 2019. Moreover, the specific impact mechanism was further tested using mediating effects. The results showed that China's carbon trading policy has significantly affected the carbon emission performance of the pilot regions, and factors such as GDP per capita, urbanization level, and capital-labor ratio have notably contributed to the reduction of carbon emission intensity. The proportions of the three mediating effects in the total effect were estimated to be 60.98%, 23.17%, and 10.14%, respectively. This study provides an empirical approach to the study of the impact of carbon trading policy on carbon emission reduction and economic output and can serve as a reference for addressing climate change and alleviating conflicts between the environment and economic growth in similar regions.
碳排放交易政策通过市场机制在减少碳排放方面发挥着关键作用。在中国实现碳中和目标和碳峰值目标的背景下，预测和评估这些政策的有效性非常重要。在之前的研究中，碳交易政策对减排和经济产出的综合影响尚未得到很好的研究。本研究通过机制分析和实证检验评估了碳排放交易政策对区域碳排放绩效的影响。机制分析表明，碳排放量减少依赖于三种中介效应：技术创新激励、产业结构优化和能源替代。对于实证检验，采用多期差分法（DID）使用中国 2005 年至 2019 年的 30 个省份的面板数据进行了研究。此外，还通过中介效应进一步测试了具体影响机制。结果表明，中国的碳交易政策显著影响了试点地区的碳排放绩效，人均 GDP、城市化水平和资本劳动比率等因素对碳强度的降低有显著贡献。三种中介效应在总效应中的比例分别估计为 60.98%、23.17%和 10.14%。本研究为研究碳交易政策对减排和经济产出的影响提供了一种实证方法，可为类似地区应对气候变化和缓解环境与经济增长之间的冲突提供参考。
