Impact and Acting Path of Carbon Emission Trading on Carbon Emission Intensity of Construction Land: Evidence from Pilot Areas in China

Recently, the environmental and resource crisis caused by excessive energy consumption has aroused great concern worldwide. China is a major country of energy consumption and carbon emissions, and has attempted to build a carbon emission trading market to reduce carbon emissions. This practice helps to promote the carbon trading projects for both regional carbon emission reduction and sustainable development in the pilot areas, as well as having important theoretical and practical significance for the further improvement of carbon emission trading policies. In this study, we first used the difference-in-difference (DID) model to evaluate the impact of carbon emission trading on the carbon emission intensity of construction land (CEICL). The results showed that the carbon emission trading policy can significantly reduce CEICL in the pilot areas. Furthermore, we adopted the quantile regression model to explore the mechanism and acting path of carbon emission trading on CEICL. The results show that the increase in carbon trading volume (CTV) can effectively reduce the CEICL. However, a high carbon trading price (CTP) tends to reduce the suppressing effect of carbon emission trading on CEICL. Additionally, carbon emission trading also affects CEICL through the indirect acting paths of industrial structure and energy intensity. Finally, we propose to promote regional low-carbon development from the perspective of developing a carbon emission trading market nationwide, rationalizing the carbon quota and trading price mechanism, optimizing the regional industrial structure, and improving the energy consumption structure.