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Policy synergy is a unique way for the government to establish a policy network and a crucial way for cities to expand their carbon reduction channels. Using urban data from China, this paper empirically investigates how environmental governance policy synergy (EGPS) affects carbon emissions. In comparison to non-pilot cities, the environmental information disclosure (EID) policy and low-carbon city (LC) policy play an inhibitory role in carbon emissions. Furthermore, EGPS has a stronger effect and is heterogeneous by region. Through the use of technical advancement and industrial structure optimisation, EGPS lowers carbon emissions, and this effect of EGPS grows over time in tandem with the level of environmental pollution in the cities. Our paper proposes policy implications in order to improve the overall effect of environmental governance policy and help achieve the dual carbon targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pollution reduction and low-carbon development are two specific but intertwined goals of addressing climate change and sustainable development of the United Nations in 2030, and the effective use of digital financial inclusion is imperative for driving technical innovation, upgrading industrial structure, and addressing climate change. Therefore, this paper investigates the impact of digital financial inclusion on the coupling coordination between pollution reduction and low-carbon development using a panel dataset of 30 China's provinces from 2011 to 2020. The results show that the coupling coordination between pollution reduction and low-carbon development in China improves significantly during the sample period. The synergistic effect of different economic zones and provinces varies greatly in space and time. In addition, digital financial inclusion has a promoting effect on the coupling coordination of pollution and carbon emission reduction. A mechanism analysis also reveals that technological innovation, industrial structure and energy consumption are the core transmission channels through which digital financial inclusion influences the synergistic effect of pollution and carbon emission reduction. This suggests that the need of coordinated governance by policymakers is warranted, and digital financial inclusion is an important way to this coordinated governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chinese government aims to balance employment stabilization and emissions reduction when it initiates an emissions trading scheme (ETS) to control carbon emissions. However, the policymakers should not neglect the role of imperfectly competitive market structure and market power from incumbent firms. In view of this, classical framework of Berman and Bui's (2001) is extended in this paper to clarify the theoretical mechanism of employment effect of the ETS considering firm-level market power. In addition, based on the firm-level panel data from 2008 to 2019 of China, the employment effect of each pilot ETS is measured with the method of difference-in-difference-in-differences. Then a moderating effect model is established to verify the role of firm-level market power on the heterogeneous employment effect among the pilot ETSs. Moreover, the employment effect is further decomposed to evaluate the influential mechanism from the perspective of firms' strategic behavior. It is found that there is negative employment effect of China's ETS policy, due to the significant moderating role of firm-level market power. This decrease in labor demand is mainly dominated by a negative output effect rather than a positive substitution effect because strategic allowance sellers with stronger market power tend to hire fewer employees to reduce carbon emissions by controlling production scale. However, the heterogeneity of policy effects resulted by market structure is also identified in different pilot regions. Employment dividend has been found in Beijing and Tianjin where strategic allowance buyers manipulate the carbon market and hire more employees to consolidate their market power. Therefore, policymakers should improve the design of the ETS to overcome the adverse employment effect duo to the region-specific market structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fossil-based natural resources are carbon-intensive, and over-reliance on them often leads to persistent high carbon emissions at national or regional levels, resulting in the carbon curse. Based on the panel data of 114 resource-based cities in China from 2007 to 2020, this paper examines the carbon curse and solutions for these cities from the perspectives of total and intensity of carbon emissions. The results show that: Firstly, due to the different stages of urban development, resource endowment, degree of resource dependence, and policy background, there is a heterogeneity of carbon curse in China's resource-based cities. Secondly, the carbon emission trading policy can effectively mitigate the carbon curse in China's resource-based cities, and the robustness tests demonstrate the validity of this finding. Thirdly, under the carbon emission trading policy, industrial structure upgrading and digital transformation can play a secondary moderating role in resolving the carbon curse in resource-based cities, further strengthening the inhibitory effect of the carbon emission trading scheme on the carbon curse. In contrast, green technology innovation exhibits no enhancement in the impact of the policy. These findings contribute to the existing research on the carbon curse, offering valuable insights and policy implications for effectively addressing this challenge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon dioxide (CO 2) emissions and climate change risk have become constraints on global economic sustainable development. Environmental regulation (ER) is a key method for achieving synergy in CO 2 and pollution reduction in China. This paper is the first study to explore the effects of ER on CO 2 emissions by exploiting the National Environmental Protection 11th Five-Year Plan (NEP11-FYP). The implementation of the NEP11-FYP significantly decreases CO 2 emissions by 19.73% in key environmental cities relative to other cities. Heterogeneity analyses suggest that this negative impact is larger in western cities and cities with more pressure to reduce CO 2 emissions. Scale effects, structural effects, and technical effects might be three potential influencing channels through which ER contributes to the CO 2 reduction effect. In addition, the results of the spatial externality of the NEP11-FYP demonstrate a positive spillover effect in neighboring cities within a distance of 300 km and a negative spillover effect in cities more than 500 km away. Our empirical findings provide policy implications for implementing low-carbon transition strategies and reducing CO 2 emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of China's carbon peak and carbon neutrality goals (the "dual carbon" goals), balancing economic development, environmental protection, and low carbon is a high priority. Therefore, exploring the impact of digital finance on carbon dioxide (CO 2) emissions is crucial. In this paper, we select the panel data of 241 cities in China from 2011 to 2020 and use the double logarithm model after verifying model forms to explore the impact of digital finance on urban CO 2 emissions. The results show a significant negative correlation between the level of digital finance and the intensity of CO 2 emissions. Heterogeneity analysis results show that the eastern region exhibits the greatest inhibitory effect, while the western region exhibits the lowest. The three sub-dimensions of digital finance can all reduce carbon emissions, but the usage depth dimension has the greatest reduction effect, while the coverage breadth dimension is slightly lower. Through mediating effect tests from two dimensions, we find that digital finance can achieve CO 2 emission reduction by promoting scientific and technological innovation. These findings have implications for understanding the carbon reduction effectiveness of digital finance and achieving the dual carbon goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change induced by carbon emissions has received extensive global attention. However, with the ever-increasing environmental attention from governments, whether firms, as main contributors to carbon emissions, have responded to the government's call to achieve carbon abatement target is uncertain. To answer this question, we manually collected urban government work reports from 2007-2016 and extracted environment-related textual content to quantify government environmental attention (GEA). Employing firms' carbon emission data from National Tax Survey Database (NTSD), this paper explores the impact of GEA on firms' carbon emissions governance. We observe that the increase in GEA cuts firms' carbon emissions. The results remain solid after using the instrumental variable method to alleviate endogeneity problems. The mechanism analysis reveals that GEA reduces firms' carbon emissions via three environmental-related decision-making behaviors of government: environmental regulations, fiscal expenditure and subsidy policies, and energy structure transformation strategies. Heterogeneity analysis shows that GEA notably reduces firms' carbon emissions from burning coal and oil energy. Moreover, firms in eastern-north, central, and western regions are more susceptible to GEA, while the impact is insignificant for firms in eastern regions. Furthermore, the carbon reduction performance is more pronounced for enterprises in capital-intensive, technology-intensive, and high polluting industries. This study provides a reference for policymakers to ensure the enforcement of carbon emissions governance of firms and to reach carbon abatement targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban residents' travel is an important component of carbon emissions and is becoming a hot topic in discussions on how to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. Existing studies mainly focus on low-carbon travel behaviours and intentions independently, ignoring the inconsistency between the two. This paper uses a bivariate probit model based on questionnaire survey data to explore the consistency between urban residents' intentions and behaviour. The results show that sociodemographic factors, TPB (theory of planned behaviour) factors, and situational factors all significantly impact the inconsistency. This paper provides careful analysis, and based on the results and analysis, proposes targeted suggestions to enhance the public intention of low-carbon travel and proper policies to improve low-carbon travel in cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changes in international markets and strict environmental regulations have challenged Chinese energy companies to reconcile sustainable and low-carbon development. Therefore, this paper focuses on 296 energy firms in China from 2011 to 2021 and uses the Difference-in-Differences (DID) method to explore the impact of China's environmental protection tax (EPT) reform on the dual dividend of energy firms from the perspective of resilience and CO 2 emissions, and fully discusses the role of government subsidies and corporate social financing. This research finds that China's EPT reform can improve the resilience of energy firms while reducing CO 2 emissions, and thus bringing a double dividend to energy firms. At the same time, government subsidies can enhance the decarbonization effect of EPT reform, but excessive subsidies can reduce the resilience of firms. In addition, the EPT reform can expand the scale of social financing for energy firms, helping them to realize a double dividend. The study's findings have important implications for the long-term low-carbon development of energy firms and provide a theoretical reference for China's EPT reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's economy and environment urgently require a green recovery as COVID-19's consequences expand over time, and the platform economy is a practical means of pursuing this goal. By employing the Generalized Divisia Index Method (GDIM), this paper aims to analyze the impact of platform economy on carbon emissions in China during the period 2013–2020. Overall, the platform economy has increased carbon emissions, but there was a decrease in carbon emissions in the platform economy between 2014 and 2016. The scale factors of platform economy are the primary contributors to the increase in China's overall emissions and most provincial carbon emissions, while the carbon intensity of platform economy factors contributes most to the decrease in carbon emissions. In particular, the carbon intensity of platform economy factors promoted the most cumulative carbon emissions in Jiangsu, Heilongjiang, Yunnan, Qinghai, and Ningxia between 2013 and 2020, and the energy intensity of platform economy factors reduced most of the cumulative carbon emissions of Heilongjiang, Yunnan, Qinghai, and Xinjiang during the same period. From the perspective of the heterogeneity of platform economic development, the main contributors of carbon mitigation from high-platform economic provinces are intensity effects. However, the platform economic structure of low-platform economic provinces significantly reduces carbon emissions. In addition, we also found significant differences in the factors influencing emissions in different groups under the influence of the pandemic. Finally, we provide some valuable references for China's platform economic development to achieve "carbon neutrality" targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outbreak and ongoing evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic have dramatically impacted economic development and CO 2 emissions. China is under simultaneous pressure to recover from the outbreak and meet its carbon reduction targets, and the government is endeavouring to stimulate economic recovery through fiscal and monetary policies. This paper uses a computable general equilibrium model to measure the impact on China's economic recovery and carbon emissions by incorporating the pandemic shock and related economic recovery policies of loan prime rate (LPR) and value-added tax (VAT) reduction. The study found that COVID-19 led to a simultaneous shock on China's supply and demand sides in which GDP dropped by 2.62% and carbon emissions fell by 2.53%, compared to the period prior to COVID-19. Although the LPR and VAT reduction effectively mitigated economic loss, the combined LPR and VAT reduction had a more substantial effect on boosting GDP than the single policies. The VAT cut expands production and was used to overcome supply-side shocks, while lowering LPR mitigates the damage of demand-side shocks. Compared to the VAT reduction policy, reduced LPR has smaller carbon emissions per unit of GDP output. Consequently, we recommend that the government concentrate on a combination of policies to navigate pandemic shocks, as the two economic stimulus policies are confirmed to complement one another in terms of strengths and shortcomings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]