| Emission peak refers to the phenomenon that the total annual carbon dioxide emissions reach the historical maximum at a certain period,and then gradually decrease after reaching the peak.On June 30,2015,the Chinese government submitted to the United Nations "Strengthening Actions in Response to Climate Change-China’s National Independent Contribution",which proposed for the first time that "by 2030,the carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP will be reduced by 60%-65% compared with 2005",and "the carbon dioxide emissions will reach the peak around 2030 and strive to active it at an early date".Emission peak and carbon neutrality have become an important part of China’s ecological civilization construction.However,because most of China’s cities are still in the stage of rapid urbanization,and rely heavily on the traditional extensive high-pollution and high-emission economic development model,the total amount of carbon dioxide emissions is still showing a significant upward trend,and it is not easy to achieve the high-quality emission peak goal in less than ten years.In this context,how to scientifically handle the relationship between stable economic growth and green low-carbon transition,and how to prevent and resolve the potential economic and social risks in low-carbon transition,is a topic worthy of attention in national governance,social practice and academic research.The target assessment system,which decomposes at all levels and transmits pressure level by level,is the core policy implementation mechanism in the field of environmental protection in China.The Central Economic Work Conference in 2021 stressed the need to "create conditions to realize the transformation from ’double control’ of energy consumption to ’double control’ of total carbon emissions and intensity as soon as possible",further strengthened the main responsibility of local governments at all levels to implement the goal of emission peak and carbon neutrality.In theory,as the main body responsible for promoting low-carbon transformation,the environmental governance orientation of local governments will directly affect the choice of emission peak path and the quality of emission peak in their jurisdiction,and they will often respond to the central environmental regulation strategically in combination with their own political performance demands and local real endowment.Further,the economic and social assessment objectives of local governments will ultimately be achieved by enterprises within their jurisdiction.Under the pressure of emission peak,the local government may not only vigorously support enterprises within its jurisdiction to engage in long-term environmental investment activities such as environmental protection investment or green innovation,but also scientifically and properly realize energy conservation and emission reduction;It is also possible to adopt a "one-size-fits-all" campaign to reduce carbon and control emissions,forcing the enterprises under its jurisdiction to choose temporary production reduction and suspension of production,a "palliative" negative environmental response behavior.How to put the above seemingly split behavior into a unified analysis framework will be one of the problems to be solved in this paper.On this basis,this paper will examine the micro-mechanism of local government’s environmental governance behavior under the pressure of emission peak from the perspective of enterprises,conduct a comprehensive discussion around the micro-economic effect of the pressure of emission peak,and explore under what circumstances the local government will encourage enterprises under its jurisdiction to carry out environmental investment,and under what circumstances it will take a carbon reduction sports.Further,"building a new national system" is one of the important working principles for implementing the goal of emission peak and carbon neutrality,and "effective market" plays an irreplaceable key role in optimizing the allocation of social resources and collaborative research.This paper will also combine the key direction of China’s current financial supply side reform to examine the mechanism of digital finance to help achieve the goal of "double carbon".This paper is divided into eight chapters.The first chapter is the introduction,which will introduce the research background,research significance,research content and innovation of this paper.The second chapter is the policy background and literature review,which will introduce the introduction process of China’s policies related to the emission peak and carbon neutralization goal,and sort out the existing literature from these aspects: the path to achieve emission peak,the environmental governance motivation of local governments,and the microeconomic consequences of environmental regulation.The third chapter is the measurement of regional emission peak pressure indicators,which will introduce the construction method of emission peak pressure indicators and the measurement method of carbon dioxide emissions at the urban level.The fourth chapter is the research on the impact of emission peak pressure on the production decision-making of enterprises.It will examine whether the emission peak pressure will induce the environmental speculative behavior of enterprises to temporarily reduce production and limit production,and discuss under what circumstances local governments will adopt campaign-based environmental governance behavior.The fifth chapter is the research on the impact of emission peak pressure on green innovation of enterprises.It will examine whether emission peak pressure can motivate enterprises to carry out green innovation,and discuss under what circumstances local governments will choose green innovation-driven strategies to cope with emission peak pressure.The sixth chapter is the research on the impact of emission peak pressure on environmental protection investment of enterprises.This chapter will first define the concept of environmental protection investment and green innovation of enterprises,examine whether emission peak pressure will promote enterprises to carry out environmental protection investment,and discuss under what circumstances local governments will choose to encourage enterprises to invest in environmental protection to cope with emission peak pressure.The seventh chapter is the research on the path to achieve the "double carbon" goal with the development of digital finance.This chapter will examine the impact mechanism of digital financial development on promoting the "dual carbon" goal combined with the important starting point of the current financial supply side reform.The eighth chapter is the research conclusion and policy implications.The main research conclusions of this paper are as follows.First of all,in the investigation of production decisions of enterprises,the research shows that the emission peak pressure will induce short-term environmental speculation behavior of enterprises to temporarily reduce production,that is,when the emission peak pressure is increased,the output value of enterprises will decrease significantly,and then the output rebound phenomenon occurs in the subsequent period.From the perspective of government governance,when local government officials expect personnel adjustment in the near future,or are eager to achieve environmental governance results in the short term,coupled with the relatively poor local economic endowment,local governments are unable to support the enterprises under their jurisdiction to engage in environmental investment,and then local governments tend to adopt campaign-style environmental governance to pressure the enterprises under their jurisdiction,which causes them to choose the negative environmental response mode of reducing production and limiting production.Further analysis shows that the negative impact of emssion peak pressure on the output value of enterprises is more obvious in the sample enterprises with heavy pollution,no political connection and small bargaining power.Secondly,on the investigation of green innovation of enterprises,this study shows that emission peak pressure can effectively stimulate enterprises to engage in green innovation activities,which is reflected in the increase of green patent applications in the total number of patent applications.From the perspective of government governance,when local government officials are in the early stage of their tenure and local economic resources are abundant,local governments are more willing to adopt green innovation driven strategies to cope with the pressure of emission peak,so as to hope that the sustainable development performance brought by green innovation can be demonstrated in the critical period of their promotion.Financial assistance and credit guidance are important ways to encourage enterprises under their jurisdiction to participate in green innovation.Further research shows that the positive incentive effect of emission peak pressure on green innovation of enterprises is more prominent among non-state-owned enterprises and sample enterprises with strong environmental law enforcement in their regions;Finally,under the pressure of emission peak,enterprises’ green technology innovation can improve their environmental and social responsibility performance while improving their business performance,and ultimately achieve a "win-win" situation of profit creation and low-carbon development.Thirdly,on the investigation of environmental protection investment of enterprises,this study shows that the greater the peak pressure of emission in the region where the sample enterprises are located,the more they will expand environmental protection investment.From the perspective of government governance,as environmental protection investment is often carried out based on existing mature green technologies,its environmental governance effect appears faster and the cycle is shorter.Therefore,when local government officials are in the late stage of their tenure,are expected to have a greater possibility of personnel adjustment in the near future,and the local economic endowment is sufficient,they are more willing to encourage enterprises under their jurisdiction to engage in environmental protection investment in order to show good environmental governance effect in the short term,Environmental protection subsidies and guiding enterprises to invest in environmental protection are the main ways for local governments to participate in environmental governance;Further analysis shows that when the regional environmental judicial efficiency is high and the financial surplus is good,the positive incentive effect of emission peak pressure on environmental protection investment of micro enterprises will be more prominent.Finally,in terms of the path of financial reform to help achieve the "dual carbon" goal,this paper takes the development of digital finance as the starting point to examine whether the current financial market reform can further stimulate long-term environmental investment while mitigating short-term speculation in production reduction.This study shows that the development of digital finance relying on big data,AI and cloud computing can not only weaken the environmental speculation behavior of enterprises to temporarily reduce production under the pressure of emission peak,but also effectively stimulate long-term environmental investment behaviors such as green innovation and environmental protection investment under the pressure of emission peak,so as to achieve the positive effect of financial development promoting the "dual carbon" goal.The mechanism test shows that,on the one hand,the development of digital finance can optimize the efficiency of credit allocation before lending,help traditional financial institutions such as banks to fully identify the potential economic and social benefits of projects,and provide financial guarantee for enterprises’ long-term environmental investment while easing the behavior of enterprises forced to reduce production due to shortage of funds.On the other hand,the development of digital finance can give full play to the supervision and governance role of creditors in the "post-loan",prompting enterprises to invest the green credit obtained in green innovation,environmental protection investment and other key areas of low-carbon transformation,and force enterprises to reduce the inertia of environmental governance while improving the efficiency of green investment.Combined with the research conclusion,the article has the following policy implications.First of all,in further promoting the goal of emision peak,the central government should properly adjust the implementation mechanism of the administrative-led "double carbon" policy,clearly distinguish the rights and responsibilities of the central government in the "double carbon" field,give local governments more autonomy to plan local characteristic carbon reduction and emission control routes,and mobilize the enthusiasm and initiative of local governments to participate in environmental governance by means of market-oriented incentives,Beware of the "one size fits all" campaign environmental governance actions taken by local governments due to their overreaction and eagerness for success.In particular,when the sudden change in the external market environment causes great pressure to achieve various environmental indicators in the short term,the central government should consider appropriately extending the assessment cycle,giving flexible space for the assessment of indicators at all levels of government,and effectively preventing the economic and social risks that may accompany the green and low-carbon transformation from the government governance level.Secondly,in the process of promoting the emission peak,the central government should comprehensively consider the objective development stage,economic endowment,industrial structure and other factors of each region,especially under the current policy implementation mechanism dominated by administrative guidance,when decomposing the carbon reduction and emission control objectives to local governments,it should follow the principle of differentiation as much as possible and adopt the method of classification assessment.Thirdly,in the process of promoting emission peak,we should further improve the construction of the ecological legal system.We should not only emphasize the "Enforcement must be strict,and laws must be followed" of environmental law enforcement,but also strive to improve the professionalism and accuracy of environmental judicial adjudication,and enhance the adaptability of the ecological legal system to the new situation of steadily promoting emission peak carbon neutralization.Finally,in the process of implementing the "double carbon" goal,we should give full play to the role of the financial market mechanism and make use of the comparative advantages of digital finance in massive data processing to further enhance the adaptability of the current financial system to green and low-carbon development.Promote the smooth and orderly withdrawal of backward production capacity through financial means,actively carry out efficient and low-carbon environmental investment,and finally realize the positive significance of "effective market" in boosting the overall low-carbon transformation of the economy and society by enabling green finance with digital finance. |
PDF Full Text Request