Frontiers in Energy Research (Jan 2022)
Reassessing the Effect of Low-Carbon City Policy in China: New Evidence From the Nighttime Light Data
Abstract
Excessive emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases have seriously affected the ecological environment and the normal operation of the social economy, and low-carbon city policy (LCCP) is one of China’s main policies to achieve carbon emission reduction goals. This study focused on the 280 cities in China, and used the difference-in-differences (DID) model and nighttime light data to evaluate the impact and mechanisms of LCCP on carbon emissions from 2003 to 2016. The results show that: 1) The implementation of LCCP can reduce carbon emissions by 16.2%; 2) Mechanism analysis shows that LCCP can achieve carbon reduction through the guidance of government behaviors, improvements of industrial structure and innovation capabilities, reductions of energy consumption, and the optimization of the ecological environment; 3) Heterogeneity analysis shows that the effect of the LCCP in suppressing carbon emissions is more effective in eastern cities with better economic and industrial bases, and large cities with more population. Furthermore, the effect of LCCP shows an inverted U-shaped trend as carbon emissions increase. This study enriches the research on assessing policy effects of China’s low-carbon city construction, and provides some inspiration for the goal of carbon neutrality and other developing countries with high carbon emission.
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