Yunxia Xiao, Yuqing Nie
College of Economic and Management, Chongqing Industry Polytechnic College, Chongqing, 401120, China.
Sci Rep. 2025 Jan 22;15(1):2781. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-86581-z.
Environmental rules and regulations are essential instruments the government administration uses to control environmental problems in this era of advanced technologies and smooth economic growth. This paper aims to examine how environmental regulations, both mandatory and incentive-based, impact on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the presence of urbanization, foreign trade, economic growth and energy efficiency (EE) in logistics transportation. The influence of explicating factors on dependent variables, such as the highest, lowest, and mean, is estimated using the quantile regression model. We applied a number of econometric techniques like unit root test, panel co-integration, quantiles regression (CO2), quantiles regression (Energy efficiency), endogeneity test, and finally, we applied the robustness test to verify the results. This research uses quantile regression to estimate the influence of environmental regulations on releasing carbon dioxide and energy efficiency, using panel data of China's thirty provinces from 2005 to 2019. Environmental policies in the Ningxia, Qinghai, and Hainan provinces impose higher pollution penalties, which significantly impact reducing CO2 emissions. These regions release more environmental regulations, and in the provinces that fall between the 25th and 50th percentiles, mandatory environmental regulations significantly lower CO2 emissions. Incentive environmental regulations regarding the environment have a more significant effect on energy efficiency in the 50th-75th, 75th-90th, and higher 90th percentile groups since these groups have made more significant investments in research and development. Meanwhile, the Yunnan, Heilongjiang, and Xinjiang provinces have higher energy efficiency levels due to mandatory environmental legislation. The results provide the correct information to the government to implement effective environmental regulations to achieve sustainable development goals.
在这个技术先进、经济平稳增长的时代，环境法规是政府行政管理用以控制环境问题的重要手段。本文旨在研究在城市化、对外贸易、经济增长和物流运输能源效率（EE）存在的情况下，强制性和激励性环境法规如何影响二氧化碳（CO₂）排放。使用分位数回归模型估计解释因素对因变量（如最高值、最低值和均值）的影响。我们应用了多种计量经济学技术，如单位根检验、面板协整、分位数回归（CO₂）、分位数回归（能源效率）、内生性检验，最后，我们应用稳健性检验来验证结果。本研究使用分位数回归，利用2005年至2019年中国30个省份的面板数据，估计环境法规对二氧化碳排放和能源效率的影响。宁夏、青海和海南三省的环境政策实施了更高的污染处罚，这对减少CO₂排放有显著影响。这些地区出台了更多的环境法规，在处于第25至50百分位数之间的省份，强制性环境法规显著降低了CO₂排放。关于环境的激励性环境法规对处于第50至75、75至90以及更高的第90百分位数组的能源效率有更显著的影响，因为这些组在研发方面进行了更大量的投资。同时，由于强制性环境立法，云南、黑龙江和新疆三省的能源效率水平较高。研究结果为政府实施有效的环境法规以实现可持续发展目标提供了正确信息。
