Impact Of Low-Carbon Pilot Policy On The Performance Of Urban Carbon Emissions

The situation of global warming caused by carbon dioxide emissions from human activities is serious and abnormal changes in the climate system have threatened the stability of the global ecosystem and the future development of humanity.CO₂taxation and CO₂emissions trading are currently the two major international market-based emission reduction methods,and China has opened a national market for CO₂trading to address this problem.Marketable emission reduction can solve the problem of economic efficiency,but it cannot solve the problem of social just exploitation.In terms of market-oriented emission reduction,there is a regressive effect that the more people occupy emission space,the less responsibility they bear for CO₂emission reduction.This does not meet the fair standards for sustainable development and does not contribute to achieving the objectives of emission reduction and ecological sustainability.The construction of CO₂cities can only compensate for this shortcoming.The construction of low-carbon cities aims to reduce the impact of cities on the environment and achieve sustainable urban development by reducing energy consumption in cities,improving resource efficiency and improving the quality of the urban environment.At the same time,it can also promote economic development,improve urban competitiveness and other benefits.Implementing a low-carbon pilot policy is key to China’s green development,which can not only help pilot areas implement energy-saving and emission reduction measures more effectively,but also provide strong support for low-carbon development nationwide.At present,however,The implementation effect of this policy is still a subject of debate within the academic community,and there is no consensus on its effectiveness.Therefore,utilizing panel data from 2006 to 2020 that includes 274 prefecture-level cities,this paper takes three batches of low-carbon pilot policies as an example,and uses a Difference-in-Differences model to explore the impact of low-carbon pilot policies on urban carbon emission intensity.Results of the study are as follows:（1）The policy has reduced the intensity of CO₂emissions in cities to some extent,and this effect is very significant in the first group of pilot cities,while the political impact of the latter two parties of pilot cities has gradually decreased.This indicates that the successful experience of a particular city is not suitable for all cities,and cities need to explore low-carbon development paths that suit them based on their own experiences and combined with their own reality.（2）Factors such as the geographical location,extent and administrative level of cities have different degrees of impact on the pilot effect.In contrast to previous research findings,the central region,rather than the eastern region,has a higher marginal emission reduction effect.（3）In cities with greater ecological and environmental awareness,the impact is greater,i.e.increasing public awareness of environmental protection contributes to reducing the intensity of regional CO₂emissions.In the light of this conclusion,this article advocates that the government should actively play a meaningful role.