Research On The Market-driven Effect Of Carbon Trading On Energy Saving And Emission Reduction Of Enterprises

In the context of the increasingly severe global warming situation and China“double carbon”target,carbon trading market is playing an increasingly important role in energy saving and emission reduction.Carbon trading is a market-based policy tool to reduce emissions.Its ultimate goal is not to trade,but to reduce carbon emissions by market means.As an important micro-entity of greenhouse gas emissions,enterprises are an important part of China’s ecological civilization construction,and their low-carbon investment behavior has attracted much attention from the society.Whether the carbon trading market can motivate enterprises to increase their investment in energy saving and emission reduction,and what factors can drive enterprises to achieve green and low-carbon transformation and thus increase their investment in energy saving and emission reduction deserve in-depth study.Based on a review of relevant literature,this paper constructs a carbon behavior evaluation index system that includes four dimensions: carbon emission reduction strategy,carbon emission reduction action,carbon trading effectiveness,and carbon emission reduction regulation,and uses hierarchical analysis to determine index weights and calculate scores to comprehensively evaluate the carbon behavior of sample enterprises.Based on externality theory,stakeholder theory,information asymmetry theory and signaling theory,the research hypotheses were proposed and a correlation regression test model was constructed based on the theoretical analysis.94 listed companies in the list of emission control enterprises in the five pilot carbon trading markets were selected as samples,and information related to annual reports,social responsibility reports and sustainable development reports were collected manually to obtain a total of 548 carbon emission reduction indexes for the years2016-2021.-The regression analysis was conducted using Stata 16.0 with a total of548 observations in 2021.The main effects regression shows that the better the performance of carbon behavior in the base period,the more companies will invest in energy saving and emission reduction in the future,indicating that these companies are more focused on the long term development of low carbon and energy saving in the corporate economy and have the willingness to invest in energy saving and emission reduction.The sub-dimensional regression shows that the effectiveness of carbon trading is positively correlated with enterprises’ investment in energy saving and emission reduction in the later stage,indicating that enterprises participating in carbon trading tend to increase their investment in energy saving and emission reduction in the later stage,which verifies the main effect hypothesis of this paper,that is,the carbon trading market has a driving effect on enterprises’ energy saving and emission reduction.The regression of the moderating effect shows that the higher the carbon trading price and carbon trading market liquidity are in the carbon trading market,the more enterprises tend to increase their investment in energy saving and emission reduction in the later stage,indicating that carbon trading price and carbon trading market liquidity are the two major driving factors of energy saving and emission reduction for enterprises in the carbon trading market.It is suggested that enterprises actively participate in carbon trading and improve their carbon behavior;regulators reasonably maintain carbon trading prices under the premise of respecting market laws;and the government strengthens the construction of a national unified carbon trading market to enhance carbon trading market liquidity.