Research on energy conservation and carbon emission reduction effects and mechanism: Quasi-experimental evidence from China

This paper aims to identify three batches of low-carbon city pilot (LCCP) policy on energy conservation and carbon emission reduction. Specifically, we first innovatively develop a theoretical model incorporating energy conservation and emission reduction technologies, industrial structure adjustment, and government environ-mental regulation into the traditional pollution emission model. Furthermore, we provide quasi-experimental evidence using a city-panel dataset from China for 2003-2017. Specifically, we adopt the time-varying differ-ence-in-difference model to examine the mechanism of how LCCP policy affects energy conservation and carbon emission reduction through various channels. The results show that the implementation of LCCP led to a sig-nificant decrease in energy intensity and carbon emission intensity of the pilot cities. This conclusion is tested by placebo and endogeneity, and it is robust under multiple scenarios. We find that LCCP policy had a heteroge-neous impact on different resource types, including the proportion of the secondary industry, financial support, and the city administrative level. The mechanism shows that the city's innovation, industrial structure, and regulatory effect are important influencing channels. Our findings also indicate that LCCP policy has a positive spatial spillover effect, promoting energy and carbon reduction in neighboring cities.

Automated summary

This paper aims to identify the impact of low-carbon city pilot (LCCP) policies on energy conservation and carbon emission reduction. The results show that the implementation of LCCP led to a significant decrease in energy intensity and carbon emission intensity of the pilot cities. The study also finds that the impact of LCCP policy varies depending on different resource types and factors such as city innovation, industrial structure, and regulatory effect.