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Climate anomalies are affecting the world. How to reduce carbon emissions has become an important issue for governments and academics. Although previous researchers have discussed the factors of carbon emission reduction from environmental regulation, economic development, and industrial structure, limited studies have explored the carbon emission reduction effect of a city's spatial structure. Based on 108 Chinese cities from the Yangtze River Economic Belt between 2003 and 2017, this paper examines the impact of the city cluster policy on city carbon emissions using the difference-in-differences (DID) method. We find that: (1) The city cluster policy has significantly reduced the cities' carbon emissions by 7.4%. Furthermore, after a series of robust and endogenous tests, such as parallel trend and PSM-DID, the core conclusion still remains. (2) We further identify possible economic channels through this effect, and find that city cluster policy would increase city productivity, city technological innovation, and industrial structure optimization. The conclusions of this paper have important practical significance for China to achieve carbon neutrality and facilitate future deep decarbonization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To cope with huge carbon emission pressure, China has implemented a carbon emissions trading pilot policy that aims to provide reasonable suggestions for the smooth operation of the national carbon market. This paper selects the provincial panel data in China from 2005 to 2019 and uses the propensity score matching-difference in difference (PSM-DID) method to evaluate the carbon emission policy's reduction effect. Based on carbon emissions (CE) and carbon emission intensity (CI), provinces and cities are divided into four regions, and each region is verified by spatial difference analysis. Furthermore, the mediating effects of carbon emission reduction through the dual aspects of technological progress and industry structure are also discussed. Results verified that, (1) under the carbon emission trading policy, regional carbon emissions and carbon emission intensity are both significantly reduced. (2) Technological progress helps to reduce carbon emissions, while industrial structure shows no obvious contribution. (3) The four regions all show ideal emission reduction effects, of which the High CE-High CI region shows the best, but is greatly restricted by techniques. The industrial structure of the High CE-Low CI region needs to be further optimized for carbon reduction. In the Low CE-High CI region, the carbon emissions brought by economic development fail to effectively improve per capita GDP. The Low CE-Low CI region contributes greatly to carbon emission reduction with technical advantages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's digital economy has been expanding rapidly in the past decade. This expansion is having a profound impact on the country's economy. Using panel data on 97 prefecture-level cities in the Yellow River Basin from 2011 to 2020, this study investigates the multifaceted relationship between the digital economy and total-factor carbon emission efficiency. The research yields three key findings: (1) The digital economy positively enhances overall carbon emission efficiency. This conclusion is drawn with robustness tests. (2) Green technology innovation serves as a partial mediator between the digital economy and total-factor carbon emission efficiency, and this mediation role is influenced by government intervention, which negatively moderates the relationship between the digital economy and green technology innovation but positively impacts the mediation role of green technology innovation between the digital economy and total-factor carbon emission efficiency. (3) The positive impact of the digital economy on total-factor carbon emission efficiency is more significant in the upper reaches, lower reaches, and resource-based cities of the Yellow River Basin. These findings provide new perspectives and empirical evidence for better understanding the relationship between digital economy development and total-factor carbon emission efficiency. They also provide policy recommendations for achieving strategic objectives, including digital economy development, carbon emission reduction, carbon peaking, and carbon neutrality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]