Energy Saving,Emission Reduction And Green Development In Chinese Cities

Economic growth is inseparable from energy as the support.Since the economic reform in 1978,China’s economy has scored impressive achievements,but this is at the cost of huge energy consumption.China is currently the world’s largest energy consumer and carbon emitter.Due to resource endowment constraints,fossil energy,especially coal,occupies an absolute position in China’s energy system.The continuous growth of energy consumption has caused China to encounter many issues such as energy security,environmental pollution,and climate change.From the perspective of energy security,China’s oil and natural gas are heavily dependent on imports with the dependence ratios as high as 72.6%and 42.6%in 2019,respectively.From the perspective of environmental pollution,China is facing serious air and water pollution,in 2019,53.4%of cities exceeded air quality standards,with the major pollutants including PM2.5,O3 and PM10.From the perspective of climate change,China’s carbon emissions have broken high records repeatedly and the reduction pressure continues to increase.In 2019,the total CO2 emissions from fossil energy combustion in China’s mainland were 9.84 billion tons,accounting for 28.8%of the total global emissions.In September 2020,China proposed to strive to achieve carbon neutrality before 2060,but in the case of energy consumption and carbon emissions breaking high record,China is facing huge pressure on emissions reduction.To alleviate the energy,environment,and climate change problems,China needs to continue to promote energy saving and emission reduction,and accelerate the development of green economy,so as to achieve high-quality development.This paper focuses on the high-quality development of Chinese cities at prefecture-level or above.The research content is the energy saving and emission reduction and green development of Chinese cities from the perspective of government intervention,focusing on the impact of different government interventions on the improvement of energy efficiency,pollutants emission reduction and green development.Based on the construction of city-level energy consumption,environmental pollution,economic growth dataset,this paper begins with the analysis of the difference features of citylevel energy intensity;and then we adopt a variety of linear programming and classical econometrics methods to empirically analyze the impact of different government intervention means,such as economic growth target management,energy saving and emission reduction policies with target constraints and financial incentives,environmental regulation,and fiscal spending,on the improvement of city-level energy efficiency,pollutants emission reduction,economic growth,and green development.The main research contents and conclusions are as follows:Firstly,analyzing the convergence pattern of city-level energy intensity.The energy,environment and climate change problems are mainly caused by fossil energy consumption.To deeply reveal the situation of energy saving,emission reduction and green development,it needs to clarify the energy consumption status.This paper begins with the collection of energy consumption data of 193 Chinese cities at prefecture-level or above,then adopts the log t test and clustering algorithm to investigate convergence characteristics of energy intensity.Besides,the Ordered Probit model is adopted to investigate the drivers that affect the formulation of the convergent club.The results show that there are four convergent clubs among total 193 cities,and these clubs show great differences in energy intensity.Marketization degree,population density,foreign direct investment,resource endowment,and industrial structure are recognized as the drivers of the formation of convergence clubs.Secondly,exploring the impact of economic growth pressure on the improvement of energy efficiency.As one of the important means of intervening market made by the government,economic growth target management has been a typical feature of Chinese governments at all levels for a long time in the past decades.Based on the city-level dataset,this paper investigates the impact of economic growth pressure on energy efficiency improvement.The results show that economic growth pressure has hindered the improvement of energy efficiency.Sub-sample regression confirms the existence of heterogeneity effects in the individual dimension and temporal dimension.Finally,by analyzing the existing studies,this paper finds that the imbalance effect of investment,the passivation effect of industrial structure upgrading,and the crowdingout effect of innovation are three important ways for economic growth pressure to restrain the improvement of energy efficiency.Thirdly,assessing the effect of a typical energy saving and emission reduction policy.The National Energy Saving and Emission Reduction Fiscal Policy Comprehensive Demonstration(ESER policy)was a new measure for energy saving and emission reduction,which is a dual policy with target constraints and fiscal incentives.Under the framework of the Differences-in-differences(DID)method,this paper evaluates the effect of ESER policy on emissions reduction and economic growth.Different from the previous studies,this paper reveals that the ESER policy can effectively reduce pollutant emissions while ensuring a stable economic growth.However,the event study reveals that the reduction effect is only existing in the demonstration period,which means that this policy is not sustainable.Furthermore,this paper finds that there is no spillover effect of ESER policy on the non-policy targeted pollutant,suggesting that the local government only cares about the reduction of policy targeted pollutants.Fourth,evaluating the impact of the Clean Air Action plan on city-level green production efficiency.The Clean Air Action is considered an important measure to control air pollution.Despite extensive studies on the benefits or the cost of the Clean Air Action,the overall effect of such an action on green development is largely unknown.This paper tries to fill this gap.Based on panel data of Chinese cities,this paper begins with the construction of a comprehensive indicator,namely green production efficiency.Then this paper implements the quasi-difference-in-differences framework to identify the policy effect of the Clean Air Action on green development.This paper finds that the Clean Air Action has enhanced the green development of Chinese cities,especially in areas with relatively high reduction target or rich resource endowment.Moreover,the dynamic analysis reveals that the positive effect of the Clean Air Action on green development presents an intensifying trend with time.Finally,discussing the role of fiscal education spending and R&D spending on green economic growth.Government expenditure is an important measure affecting market mechanism.Based on the panel data of China’s cities from 2005 to 2016,this paper first constructs the green economic growth index by using the non-radial direction distance function.Then,by employing the System-GMM estimation,this paper further evaluates the effect of fiscal education spending and R&D spending on green economic growth,as well as the potential mechanism.The following findings are obtained:the System-GMM estimation results confirm the existence of composition effect and technique effect in the full sample,but the sub-sample analysis suggests that there are heterogeneous effects in different areas with different resources abundant degree;Mechanism analysis illustrates that fiscal R&D spending and education spending foster the green economic growth through technological activities and human-capital intensive activities,respectively,but they exhibit distinct roles in different areas.This paper explores the impact of different government interventions on city-level energy saving,emission reduction and green development,and puts forward targeted and realistic policy recommendations for future policy design.The findings are of great significance for promoting the green transformation of Chinese cities.