Study On Effectiveness And Evaluation Of Legal Systems Of Residents’ Carbon Emissions Reduction Of Electricity Consumption From The Perspective Of Dual-carbon Goals

To address climate change,the Chinese government will adopt more effective policies and measures,and has committed to reaching carbon peak by 2030 and ensuring carbon neutrality by 2060,which demonstrates China’s determination to cope with climate change and its responsibility as a major country in building a community of a shared future for mankind.With the increase of residents’ income and change of consumption pattern,the demand of energy consumption of Chinese residents continues to increase,among which residential electricity consumption ranks the first,and the total electricity consumption in household sector is growing rapidly,thus becoming a new growth point of domestic carbon emissions.Besides,the growth rate of carbon emissions in the residential area has surpassed that of industry,and become a key area to deal with climate change.Therefore,practical and effective legal system is needed to regulate residential carbon emissions of electricity consumption.However,a sound legal system has been designed to promote enterprises to reduce the carbon emission on the production side,while the legal system on residents’ carbon emission reduction is not paid enough attention.Therefore,this paper chooses the legal system of residents’ electricity carbon emission and focuses on three legal mechanisms,that is,command-and-control regulation,market-based policy instruments,and guidance and voluntary regulation as the research object.The existing legal systems of residential carbon emission of electricity consumption in China are sorted out and qualitatively analyzed.Besides,problems in the regulation of residential carbon emission in China are summarized in order to provide reference for the improvement of the legal system of carbon emission reduction in the future.Energy efficiency level,energy price and energy saving behavior are important factors affecting residents’ electricity demand and carbon emissions.Therefore,energy efficiency standards and labeling system,increasing-block electricity pricing(IBEP)policy and information feedback policy are selected respectively in this paper.On this basis,econometric methods are used to quantitatively evaluate the effectiveness and feasibility of these different policy tools on the low-carbon energy consumption behavior of residents.According to the empirical results of the study,legal systems of residential carbon emission of electricity consumption are optimized with the help of residential carbon emission mechanism abroad,so as to promote low-carbon development and build ecological civilization from the demand side.The main contents of this paper include the following aspects.Firstly,it introduces the basic concept and explains the influence of residential carbon emission and necessity of legal regulation of residential carbon emission reduction from electricity consumption.This paper analyzes the economic theory and legal theory of residential carbon emission.The economic theory of residential carbon emission includes information asymmetry theory,externality theory and behavioral economics theory and the legal theory of residential carbon emission includes legal regulation theory.From the multiple perspectives of law and economics,this paper widens the single research on the legal system of residential carbon emission in the field of economics and the general research in the field of law,and comprehensively uses various methods to ensure the credibility of research results and the pragmatism of policy recommendations.Secondly,based on the legal systems of residential carbon emission,the paper qualitatively analyzes the actual institutional structure and implementation of command-and-control regulation,market-based policy instruments,and guidance and voluntary regulation and then summarizes the limitations of the existing legal systems of residential carbon emission from electricity consumption in China.Thirdly,this paper empirically tests and evaluates the legal mechanism of residential carbon emission of electricity consumption.As a kind of command-and-control regulation,energy efficiency standards and labeling system plays an important role in guiding residents’ low-carbon consumption.The validity function of energy efficiency standard and labeling system is constructed by using behavioral economics theory and the discrete choice model is applied to analyze the validity of energy efficiency standards and labeling system.Besides,this paper analyzes the heterogeneous preferences of different groups of residents for energy efficiency standards and labeling system.As a typical application of market-based policy instruments,IBEP policy aims to mitigate climate change.This paper reviews IBEP policy in market-based policy instruments,and uses breakpoint regression model to evaluate the implementation of IBEP policy.Using multiple regression and discrete choice model,this paper analyzes the influences of residents’ cognition of IBEP policy and the impact of residents’ heterogeneity on IBEP policy.As an important part of guidance and voluntary regulation,information feedback policy can promote residents to practice low-carbon life.This paper analyzes the mechanism of behavioral economics of information feedback policy,and makes an empirical analysis of the validity of information feedback policy by using the principle of propensity matching score.The empirical research results will help the government to realise the role of different information feedback in encouraging residents to save energy,so as to optimize and develop information feedback strategies more specifically,explore the potential of information feedback,and guide and encourage residential energy conservation and emission reduction.Finally,according to the empirical results of the existing legal systems of residential carbon emission of electricity consumption in China,this paper puts forward the basic countermeasures to improve the legal systems of residential carbon emission of electricity consumption in China from the perspective of command-and-control regulation,market-based policy instruments,and guidance and voluntary regulation by drawing lessons from legal systems abroad.Based on the above research,this paper draws the following conclusions.First,due to the incomplete comprehension of the potential benefits and costs of energy-using products,residents may be unwilling to invest in more energy-efficient products with higher initial prices.Energy efficiency standard and labeling policy guides consumers’ energy consumption decisions by providing energy efficiency information of products.Using the micro data of Chinese General Social Survey,the empirical results show that the energy efficiency standard and labeling policy and the corresponding subsidy policy have a positive effect on the purchase of energy-saving electrical appliances.In terms of heterogeneity,education level and regional differences affect residents’ energy-saving behaviors,and housing area affects residents’ purchase of energy-saving air conditioning.Based on the empirical results,China should further improve the legal systems of energy efficiency labeling,enhance residents’ understanding of the legal systems and subsidy policy of energy efficiency labeling,expand the product range of energy efficiency labeling and improve the manifestation of energy efficiency labeling.Second,residential IBEP policy in China is a type of market-based policy that uses price mechanism to guide residents to save electricity.Breakpoint regression is used to evaluate whether the implementation of the IBEP policy can promote residents to save electricity and use electricity more reasonably,so as to reduce the residential carbon dioxide emission.The results show that the effect of the IBEP policy on resource saving is very limited,and residents’ cognition of increasing-block electricity pricing can effectively correct residents’ unreasonable electricity consumption behavior.In terms of individual heterogeneity,residents’ age,education level and energy-saving lifestyle have a positive effect on the understanding of IBEP policy.According to the existing problems related to the IBEP policy,this paper puts forward policy suggestions to further optimize structure of increasing-block electricity pricing,strengthen the awareness of the policy and cultivates residents’ energy-saving habits through education,and further promote the peak-valley TOU(time of use)tariff policy.Third,information feedback policy is considered as a cost-effective way to promote energy conservation.Based on the survey data of Chinese General Social Survey,this paper analyzes the impact of information feedback of both electricity bill and smart meter installation on residents’ energy saving through the propensity score matching method respectively.The results show that information provision via information bills curtails electricity consumption by around 20%,whereas information feedback via smart meters’ installation has no positive effects on household electricity conservation due to lack of access and knowledge to understand the displays of advanced meters.In light of the above results,the study suggests that policy-makers stress the importance of information feedback-based initiatives,improve the information feedback capacity of smart meters through training and education and enhance the guiding role for residents’ energy saving behavior through the publicity and education of information feedback strategy.Fourth,according to the main conclusions of policy analysis and empirical research in this study,the paper puts forward policy suggestions to lay a solid legal foundation for the reduction of household electricity carbon emissions,formulate strict energy efficiency standards and labeling systems,promote the standards,labeling and certification of low-carbon products,improve the legal mechanism for household energy subsidies and prices,establish an information mechanism that combines energy conservation goals with energy use information,and promote low-carbon education to guide the low-carbon behavior of residents.The current study on the legal system of carbon emission in China mainly focuses on the enterprises on the supply side,while the legal system of residential energy consumption and carbon emission regulation on the demand side is rarely studied.This paper makes in-depth analysis of current situation and deficiencies of legal systems of residents’ carbon emissions reduction of electricity consumption,which broaden the scope of research of China’s legal system of carbon emission reduction.This paper analyzes the validity of residential energy consumption and carbon emission regulation by employing a variety of economic empirical models,which breaks through the traditional and single paradigm of studying legal systems from a qualitative perspective,and makes the perfection of legal systems for residents’ carbon emission reduction of electricity consumption more practical and operable.