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Evaluating the effects of China's carbon emission trading scheme (ETS) is crucial for the coordinated development of Chinese cities. Therefore, based on the panel data of 242 cities in China from 2008 to 2019, this paper uses the multi-period difference-in-difference (DID) model to comprehensively evaluate the impact of carbon market on the coordinated development of cities from the perspectives of carbon market policy and carbon market efficiency, and then analyzes the mechanism and heterogeneity of the effect of carbon market efficiency. The results show that both carbon market policy and carbon market efficiency can promote the coordinated development of cities. Science and education expenditure plays a significant intermediary role in the impact of carbon market efficiency on the coordinated development of cities. The heterogeneity test finds that the stricter the performance penalty system, the higher the level of urban coordinated development, and the stronger the effect of carbon market efficiency. The findings of this paper provide policy recommendations for further improving the construction of China's pilot and national ETS and enhancing the coordinated development of Chinese cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the signing of the Paris Agreement in 2016, countries began to explore new economic models to get rid of the high emissions and high pollution caused by the traditional extensive economic model. Circular economy (CE) is regarded as an important way to achieve carbon neutrality, yet there is little literature has explored the relationship between the two. This paper aims to provide evidence and suggestions for developing circular economy strategies in emerging developing countries such as China by exploring the relationship between circular economy and carbon emissions. In this study, urban carbon emissions were measured by using high-resolution carbon emission data and the circular economy of 285 cities in China from 2009 to 2018 was estimated using a data envelopment analysis (SBM-DEA) model based on a super effective slackness measure. Then, the spatial impact of the circular economy was analyzed based on the spatial Durbin model. The empirical results are as follows: first, carbon intensity shows a positive spatial correlation, with most cities clustered in high-high (H-H) and low-low (L-L) types. Second, it was found that CE has a significant negative impact on the carbon intensity of local cities and neighboring cities. Third, based on regional heterogeneity, CE has significant negative direct and indirect effects in central and western cities. In contrast, CE has only significant direct effects (negative values) in eastern cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The China government focuses on changes in carbon emission efficiency with establishing carbon emission trade exchange (CETE). It is meaningful to study whether the pilot CETEs can facilitate the betterment of carbon emission efficiency. Using the data of 283 cities in China within 2006–2019, this article gauges the carbon emission efficiency with the SBM-DEA model. This paper analyzes the impact of China's pilot CETEs, which was gradually launched from 2013 to 2014, on carbon emission efficiency through the time-varying difference-in-difference (DID) model. Finally, the mediating effect model is further used to analyze the impact mechanism of the pilot CETEs on carbon emission efficiency from the perspectives of innovation investment and pollution control investment. The results reveal that the carbon emission efficiency of each city from 2006 to 2019 is not very ideal. All cities have some room to facilitate the carbon emission efficiency. The pilot CETEs have increased the carbon emission efficiency and reduced carbon dioxide emission. The policy influences the carbon emission efficiency through innovation investment and pollution control investment, which represent long-run and short-run mechanism respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy efficiency (EE) plays an important role in achieving the dual-carbon goal, and improving EE is thus indispensable. This paper evaluates the impact of carbon emission trading policy (CETP) on EE based on a difference-in-difference (DID) method, using 16-year data of 30 provinces and cities from 2005 to 2020. Conclusions are as follows: (1) CETP significantly promotes EE, and this conclusion still appears valid after robustness tests. (2) The positive impact of CETP on EE is more effective in regions of high foreign direct investment (FDI) and high government intervention (GOVI). (3) The positive impact of CETP on EE is through impact mechanisms of energy structure adjustment (ESA), green innovation (GI), and industrial structure upgrading (ISU). The findings in this paper may enrich current research in CETP and offer more pragmatic suggestions for policy advancement as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon peaking and carbon neutrality will be important policies to constrain China's economic and social development in the future. Based on the theory of computable general equilibrium, CGE model of carbon emission was constructed in this paper to simulate the influence of different scenarios of carbon emission reduction on economic and social development. The major contribution is to subdivide the energy sector according to primary energy and secondary energy, and construct the macro SAM table and micro SAM table of 21 energy sectors in 2017 to quantitatively simulate the impact of carbon emission reduction policies on China's economy and society, and put forward some policy suggestions based on this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's rapid economic growth is accompanied by industrial agglomeration (IA) and environmental pollution. Although IA has played an important role in reducing environmental pollution, its effect on carbon emissions is still debatable and deserves further study. In this context, this paper constructs a two-sector general equilibrium model including households and firms to explore the mechanisms of IA on carbon emissions and finds that IA mainly affects carbon emissions through the agglomeration effect and congestion effect. Then, based on the balanced panel data for 30 Chinese provinces from 2003 to 2019, this study employs the dynamic spatial panel model to investigate the nexus between different types of IA and carbon emissions. The empirical results reveal that a significant positive spatial dependence is verified in the regional carbon emissions of China, indicating that carbon emissions exhibit a remarkably spatial spillover effect. Meanwhile, there are significant variations in the influence of different types of IA on carbon emissions. Specifically, specialized agglomeration (SA) positively affects carbon emissions, while the impact of diversified agglomeration (DA) on carbon emissions is negative, implying that China's DA may contribute to carbon emission control. In addition, there is regional heterogeneity in the effect of IA on carbon emissions, with the western region having a significantly greater effect than the eastern and central regions. Therefore, the Chinese government should follow the notion of integrating territory administration and interregional communication and formulate regionally differentiated environmental governance policies to promote carbon emission reduction in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The advancement of electricity market reform highlights the need for China's photovoltaic (PV) industry to enter the stage of market competition. Under the carbon neutrality, what impacts electricity market reform has on China's PV industry is an important issue that needs to be considered. This paper analyzes the driving mechanism of the marketed on-grid price and constructs a system framework for the internal connection within the PV industry under the background of carbon neutrality. Then, two system dynamics (SD) models are built to perform the numerical simulation and analyze the evolution process. The results indicate that during the market competition stage, (i) the on-grid price will be stable at about 0.07 yuan/kWh by 2060; (ii) China's PV industry will go through three stages in the future: the first stage is the "rush to install" period for carbon peaking before 2030, followed by the "sluggish installation" period from 2030 to 2038. The third stage is the outbreak period of "PV + multi-scenarios."; (iii) under three scenarios by 2060, the proportion of PV power generation will account for 46%, 39%, and 32%, respectively, which are higher than those under the benchmark on-grid price; (iv) it is necessary for the government and enterprises to continue increasing support for research and development (R&D). Finally, we put forward corresponding policy recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employment is the foundation of people ’s livelihoods, and a low-carbon transition is a key development theme for China in the future. The impact of reducing CO2 emissions as a hard macroeconomic constraint on the labor market is an important economic issue. This paper used China’s low-carbon city pilot policy as a representative policy to study the low-carbon transition. Firstly, based on the analysis of typical economic facts and policy texts, it was found that there might exist two distinct low-carbon transition approaches in China. The study then examined the differences in the policy impact on labor employment in the first and second batches of pilot cities, analyzed the underlying mechanisms, and finally constructed a general equilibrium model based on the empirical findings to further elaborate the heterogeneous impact pathways from a theoretical perspective. The study showed that: ① There was a difference in the policy impact on employment in the first and second batches of pilot cities. The policy increased employment in secondary and tertiary industries and total employment in the first batch of pilot cities, but it increased employment in tertiary industries and decreased employment in secondary industries in the second batch of pilot cities. ② There was a difference in the mechanisms of policy impact on employment in the first and second batches of pilot cities. Under the influence of the policy, the first batch of pilot cities adopted the low-carbon transition approach of focusing resources on the secondary industry, while the second batch of pilot cities adopted the lowcarbon transition approach of focusing resources on the tertiary industry. ③ The low-carbon transition approaches of the two batches of pilot cities had their own advantages and disadvantages. The approach of the first batch of pilot cities achieved a reduction in total CO2 emissions and an increase in the number of jobs, with the disadvantage of increasing the intensity of CO2 emissions and reducing the disposable income of workers, failing to improve the quality of employment. However, the approach of the second batch of pilot cities reduced the intensity of CO2 emissions, increased employment in the tertiary industry, and increased the disposable income of workers, effectively improving the quality of employment but failing to achieve a reduction in total CO2 emissions and an increase in total employment. Accordingly, China’s goals of reaching peak carbon emissions and achieving carbon neutrality can be achieved either by industrial transformation and upgrading or by enhancing the development of the tertiary industry, but the best way is to develop the tertiary industry on the basis of industrial transformation and upgrading without blindly adopting the de-industrialization approach to achieve the peak carbon emission goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to achieve the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals, energy-intensive industries in China, as the main sectors of energy consumption and carbon emissions, had huge pressure to reduce emissions. In addition, the reduction of vegetation area led to a decline in carbon sink capacity, which further exacerbated the imbalance of mutual penetration between carbon source and carbon sink. Therefore, this article considered the role of carbon source and carbon sink and defined and calculated the "carbon emission penetration" (CEP) of the six energy-intensive industries from 2001 to 2020. The KAYA formula and the LMDI method were used to decompose the driving factors of CEP in the three aspects of scale, intensity, and structure. The combined model of STIRPAT and the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) was used to simulate and analyze the equilibrium points of energy-intensive industries in China from the perspective of factor driving. The analysis results indicated that there were differences in the fluctuation trend of CEP in the six energy-intensive industries, which can be divided into three types: "two-stage growth," "steady growth," and "single peak." Secondly, the driving factors from the three aspects of scale, intensity, and structure—emission intensity (CE), energy consumption intensity (EI), industrial structure (IS), economic scale (GP), and carbon sequestration scale (PCA)—had differences in industry and time dimensions. And the realization time of the CEP equilibrium points of six industries showed a three-level gradient feature significantly. This can provide some reference for the low-carbon transformation of six energy-intensive industries and optimization of China's environmental management under the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identifying the differentiated effects of different environmental regulations is the basis for promoting China's zero carbon emissions and carbon neutrality. We used Chinese provincial panel data from 2003 to 2017 to empirically test the impact of different environmental regulations on carbon neutrality through spatial measurement models. The highlights of the study are as follows: (1) Environmental regulations exert significant impact on carbon emissions, but different types of environmental regulations exert significantly different effect on carbon emissions. Public participation environmental regulation has a control effect on regional carbon emissions, while command-based and market-based environmental regulations had no significant effect on regional carbon neutrality. (2) The heterogeneity of the impact of different types of environmental regulations on carbon emissions can also be identified from the regional impacts heterogeneity and lags impact heterogeneity. (3) The combined mandatory and market-based environmental regulations and the combined mandatory and public-participatory environmental regulations significantly inhibited regional carbon neutrality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Driven by global targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, energy systems are expected to undergo fundamental changes. In light of carbon neutrality policies, China is expected to significantly increase the proportion of hydrogen and electricity in its energy system in the future. Nevertheless, the future trajectory remains shrouded in uncertainty. To explore the potential ramifications of varying growth scenarios pertaining to hydrogen and electricity on the energy landscape, this study employs a meticulously designed bottom-up model. Through comprehensive scenario calculations, the research aims to unravel the implications of such expansions and provide a nuanced analysis of their effects on the energy system. Results show that with an increase in electrification rates, cumulative carbon dioxide emissions over a certain planning horizon could be reduced, at the price of increased unit reduction costs. By increasing the share of end-use electricity and hydrogen from 71% to 80% in 2060, the unit carbon reduction cost will rise by 17%. Increasing shares of hydrogen could shorten the carbon emission peak time by approximately five years, but it also brings an increase in peak shaving demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the background that China will achieve the goal of carbon neutrality by 2060, analyzing the impact of carbon neutral target constraints on the welfare of urban and rural residents is an important part of the design of a carbon emission reduction policy mechanism, in this paper, the dynamic recursive CGE(Computable general equilibrium) model is used to simulate the changes in welfare level, income consumption, and CO2 emissions of residents and their urban-rural heterogeneity under the policy of imposing a carbon tax on the fossil energy industry from 2022 to 2060. The results show that: compared with the BAU scenario, by 2060, first the income and consumption of residents will decrease slightly. Second, the target constraint of carbon neutrality makes the equivalent variation and compensate variation of urban and rural residents' welfare decrease slightly, and the equivalent variation and compensate variation of urban residents decrease more than those of rural residents. The following conclusions are drawn: first, the carbon-neutral target constraint makes the welfare of urban and rural residents decline slightly, but it will not have a strong impact on residents' income and consumption. Second, this constraint has a greater impact on the income, consumption and savings of urban residents than those of rural residents. [Display omitted] • A five-layer nested dynamic recursive CGE model is established to analyze residents' welfare. • Carbon taxes are incorporated into production decisions as a policy cost for energy companies. • The heterogeneity of the impact of carbon tax policy constraints on the welfare of urban and rural residents was analyzed. • The government needs to improve the intensive and diversified energy supply in rural areas to reduce the urban-rural gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Regional ecological benefits of developing forest carbon sequestration projects in carbon markets are empirically investigated. • The pilot policy of China's one regional offset mechanism (Guangdong PHCER) is used as a quasi-natural experiment. • The carbon market can effectively increase city greening by encouraging the development of forest carbon sequestration projects. • This effect does not crowd out arable resources.Thank you very much. This paper investigates the regional spillover effects of the project-based voluntary market under the carbon emissions trading scheme (ETS). By exploiting one local offset mechanism (China's PHCER) as a quasi-experiment, we detect the unintended causal effect of the carbon market on greening the city. Using the difference-in-differences (DiD) estimator, we find that the voluntary carbon market resulted in a 14.45% (14.34%) increase in city-year-level NDVI summary value (per capita). The primary mechanism is the expansion of forest carbon sequestration projects. Cities with lower carbon emissions and fewer carbon market participants experience a greater causal effect. More importantly, we find no evidence to support the crowding out of arable land by forest carbon sequestration projects. Finally, several policy implications for a more functional carbon market are discussed. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analysis of household consumption carbon emissions (HCCEs), a significant source of CO2 emissions, is essential to achieving China's carbon peak before 2030 and carbon neutrality before 2060. Based on the calculation of urban and rural HCCEs during 2005–2019, the differences between urban and rural areas, spatial–temporal pattern and agglomeration characteristics of HCCEs were analyzed, and the panel quantile STIRPAT model was constructed to empirically test the influence of socioeconomic factors on urban and rural HCCEs at different quantile levels. The results indicate that, first, China's HCCEs are generally growing, indirect HCCEs are more than direct HCCEs, urban HCCEs are far more than rural, and the gap has a growing trend. Second, the urban and rural HCCEs have significant disequilibrium and agglomeration characteristics in space, and high-high and low-low agglomerations dominated the local region. Third, household size and the number of patent application authorizations increase the urban and rural HCCEs, while the consumption capacity and consumption structure inhibit the urban and rural HCCEs. In addition, the level of education also has an inhibitory effect on the rural HCCEs, while the aging degree of the population has a significant positive impact on the rural HCCEs when it is only at the 90th percentile. Finally, it is suggested to formulate differentiated emission reduction policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]