Study On The Urban Carbon Reduction Potential And The Impact Of Carbon Reduction Policy In China

Recently,China has surpassed the US to become the world's largest carbon emitter.As the main gathering place for production activities,cities are the main source of energy consumption and carbon emissions.China has a vast territory,and the economic development level,industrial structure,environmental capacity and factor endowments among cities are quite different.Therefore,energy consumption and carbon emissions are also different among cities.Accurate measurement and evaluation of China's urban carbon emission performance and energy efficiency can help policy makers grasp the city's carbon emissions and energy use,and pr ovide a reference for the allocation of carbon emission quotas.Based on the status of urban carbon emissions and energy utilization,analyzing the carbon emission reduction potential and the cost of abatement can provide a basis for Chinese government to fully understand the possibility of carbon emission reduction and the reduction costs to be paid.A reasonable division will help China to formulate a realistic emission reduction policy.At present,in order to cope with the problem of climate warming,Chinese government has promulgated and implemented a number of emission reduction policies.On the one hand,it has issued a number of order-based emission reduction policies,which imposes mandatory environmental constraints on enterprises and increases the environmental costs of enterprises;On the other hand,Chinese government has gradually adopted market-based tools as an important means of responding to greenhouse gas emissions,and tried to use market regulation mechanisms to achieve emission reduction targets.Effectively evaluate the implementation effects of such two types of emission reduction policies,and provide a strong basis for Chinese government to optimize existing emission reduction policies,incorporate emission reduction targets into medi um-and long-term economic development plans,and promote market-based emission reduction policies nationwide.Unlike the previous weak disposition of undesired output s in violation of the thermodynamic principle,this paper constructs a DEA model that con siders the principle of material balance,and uses Chinese urban data to analyze carbon emission performance and energy efficiency.We slao consider the principle of fairness and efficiency to incorporate carbon emission performance into the emission quota allocation framework.Then,based on the DEA model considering the principle of material balance and its dual model,the carbon mitigation marginal costs are measured by shadow price.We then estimate the carbon reduction potential and emission reduction costs of China's cities.By employing different convergence models,we analyze the convergence of carbon reduction costs,and grasp the regional differences and development trends of carbon reduction costs.Taking the emission reduction policy of the 11 th Five-Year Plan and the carbon trading pilot policy as examples,we analyze the impacts of the command type and market type reduction policies.On the one hand,combined with China's micro-enterprise data,we analyze the impact of the emission reduction policy of the 11 th Five-Year Plan on enterprise productivity;on the other hand,we use China's urban panel data to analyze the impact of the carbon trading pilot policy on energy efficiency and its impact paths.We find that China's urban carbon emissions performance is poor and the total factor energy efficiency is low overall.There is great improvement room for energy efficiency.However,over time,carbon emissions performance in various regions has improved significantly.There is no significant “catch-up” effect in carbon emission performance changes,and there are significant differences in carbon emission performance in the eastern,central and western cities.In recent years,carbon emissions performance in western cities has been mainly affected by technological changes,while eastern and central cities have been affected by efficiency changes and technological changes.A composite indicator is constructed that considers carbon emission performance and historical cumulative emissions.Using the allocation indicator,cities with lower historical carbon emissions and better carbon emission performance can obtain more emission quota.At the same time,cities with higher historical carbon emissions can obtain more emission quota when they have better carbon emissions performance.This method of distribution is reasonable,as it can promote regional carbon emissions reduction and promote carbon trading.The proportion of potential carbon emission reductions in China's cities to actual emissions is basically maintained at around 50%,and there is a large potential for carbon emission reduction.As far as the calculation results of carbon marginal reduction costs are concerned,the opportunity cost of reducing the carbon emissions in China's cities is increasing.Moreover,the marginal abatement costs in the central and western regions are higher than the national average,while the marginal abatement costs in the eastern region is relatively low.During the sample period,China's urban marginal abatement costs do not show convergence.The divergence rate in various regions of China is from the middle to the east and then to the west.The divergence rate of marginal abatement costs in the central region is the fastest,which requires more efforts in the emission reduction work.The effect of command type reduction policy on the enterprises productivity confirms that the “Porter Hypothesis” is established in China.The carbon reduction policy of the 11 th Five-Year Plan can significantly improve the enterprises productivity.The heterogeneity test reveals that the policy has less impact on state-owned enterprises and does not bring about significant changes in productivity.The productivity of foreign-owned enterprises and private enterprises has been significantly promoted by the 11 th Five-Year Plan carbon reduction Policy.Private enterprises are more sensitive to carbon reduction policies.Meanwhile,enterprises located in the eastern and central regions of China are positively affected by energy conservation policies,while the productivity of enterprises in the western region has not been significantly affected.The empirical study of impact of market type carbon reduction policy on the total factor energy efficiency shows that China's carbon trading pilot policy has significantly improved the total factor energy efficiency of the pilot cities.Moreover,the impact in the first year of policy implementation is the biggest.In the following three years of implementation,the positive promotion impact is still statistically significant.The carbon trading pilot policy has triggered energy consumption structure and industrial restructuring.It also stimulates government-led technological innovation and enterprise-led technological innovation activities in pilot cities,although the long-term energy effects of such innovative activities remain to be seen.The carbon trading pilot policy has a positive impact on the secondary industry's share of GDP.Regulatory pressure does not shift production outside the industry,and the adjustment of industrial structure also helps to improve total factor energy efficiency.