Jia Kuiyuan, Yuan Ruhua
School of Business, Hohai University, Nanjing, China.
Hohai University, Jiangning District, Nanjing City, Jiangsu Province, 211100, China.
Heliyon. 2024 Mar 29;10(8):e28858. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e28858. eCollection 2024 Apr 30.
The issue of global climate change has garnered increasing attention, with carbon emissions emerging as a significant challenge confronting the world today. As an important means of environmental management, river basin ecological compensation must break through the traditional thinking of "water-centric" and move towards the coordinated development of "pollution reduction". Therefore, the study chooses the watershed scale ecological compensation experiment carried out in the Yangtze River Economic Belt as a natural experiment. Based on the prefecture-level city panel data from 2008 to 2021, a double difference model is constructed to examine the impact of the basin horizontal ecological compensation policy on carbon emissions and its mechanism. The study shows that the inter-regional horizontal ecological compensation measures have an obvious inhibitory effect on carbon emissions in the region, and through a series of tests, the conclusion is stable. Mechanism testing shows that policy implementation achieves carbon emission reductions through two channels: improving financial development and promoting scientific and technological innovation. The results of heterogeneity analysis verify that the effect of policy implementation is affected by the dual factors of social economy and innovation and entrepreneurship and that key cities and cities with a high innovation and entrepreneurship environment produce higher carbon emission reduction benefits. The research conclusions provide policy suggestions for promoting watershed ecological compensation policies to achieve carbon emission reduction from three aspects: encouraging small and medium-sized watersheds to implement city-specific policies, promoting innovative technologies and establishing monitoring and evaluation mechanisms, and strengthening policy support and financial investment.
全球气候变化问题日益受到关注，碳排放已成为当今世界面临的重大挑战。流域生态补偿作为环境治理的重要手段，必须突破传统的“以水为中心”思维，向“减污”协同发展转变。因此，本研究选取长江经济带开展的流域尺度生态补偿试点作为自然实验。基于2008—2021年地级市面板数据，构建双重差分模型，考察流域层面生态补偿政策对碳排放的影响及其作用机制。研究表明，区域间横向生态补偿措施对本地区碳排放有明显抑制作用，且经过一系列检验，结论具有稳健性。机制检验表明，政策实施通过改善金融发展和促进科技创新两条渠道实现了碳排放减少。异质性分析结果验证了政策实施效果受社会经济与创新创业双重因素影响，且重点城市和创新创业环境高的城市产生的碳排放减少效益更高。研究结论从鼓励中小流域实施差异化政策、推广创新技术并建立监测评估机制、强化政策支持与资金投入三个方面为推动流域生态补偿政策实现碳排放减少提供了政策建议。
