The Impact Of Local Government Energy Conservation And Environmental Protection Expenditure On Carbon Dioxide Emission In China

Carbon dioxide emission reduction is a long-term systematic project in China,which has been highly valued by the party and the government.With the proposal of China’s medium and long-term climate goals such as carbon peak and carbon neutralization,the importance of carbon dioxide emission reduction has risen to a new strategic height.The report of the Nineteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out: "Guide international cooperation in addressing climate change and become an important participant,contributor and leader in the construction of global ecological civilization".As an important way for the government to participate in climate governance,energy conservation and environmental protection expenditure is a special expenditure for energy conservation and emission reduction,which has an important impact on carbon dioxide emission.Compared with the central government,local governments not only face the constraints of carbon dioxide emission reduction targets,but also undertake the important task of low-carbon city development strategy,which is the key to achieve China’s medium and long-term climate goals.Therefore,it is very necessary to analyze China’s carbon dioxide emission reduction from the perspective of local government energy conservation and environmental protection expenditure.Focusing on the core issue of the impact of local government energy conservation and environmental protection expenditure on carbon dioxide emission,this paper first constructs a theoretical model to clarify the mechanism of energy conservation and environmental protection expenditure on carbon dioxide emission,and then adopts the expanded decomposition model and econometric regression model,using the unique dataset of detailed energy conservation and environmental protection expenditure and carbon dioxide emission,to comprehensively explore the impact of the scale and structure of energy conservation and environmental protection expenditure on carbon dioxide emission during 2016-2019 at city level,providing empirical evidence for local governments to control carbon dioxide emissions from the perspective of energy conservation and environmental protection expenditure.Second,further explore whether the above impact is effective,that is,whether the local government energy conservation and environmental protection expenditure has played the best level in reducing carbon dioxide emission.In view of this,the efficiency measurement model of energy conservation and environmental protection expenditure is constructed,and combined with the panel convergence model and the expanded spatial meta-frontier analysis model,the spatiotemporal characteristics and causes of energy conservation and environmental protection expenditure efficiency during2007-2019 at city level are systematically tested,providing reference for local governments to formulate policies to improve the efficiency of energy conservation and environmental protection expenditure.Third,based on the analysis above,an optimization model of energy conservation and environmental protection expenditure path is constructed for important climate targets.Combined with scenario simulation and Environmental Kuznets curve model respectively,the optimal path of energy conservation and environmental protection expenditure at city level towards the carbon intensity and carbon peak targets in 2030 is discussed.This could provide important experience and reference for local governments to optimize the structure and scale of energy conservation and environmental protection expenditure under the background of important climate targets.The main conclusions of this paper can be summarized into the following three aspects:First,on the one hand,the expenditure structure of energy conservation and environmental protection,the tendency of government expenditure,the technological progress of energy conservation and environmental protection expenditure and other factors are the main drivers for the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions,while the potential carbon inhibition intensity,the technical efficiency of energy conservation and environmental protection expenditure,the potential financial expenditure structure and other factors are the main drivers for its increase.On the other hand,the local government’s expenditure on energy conservation and environmental protection has a nonlinear impact on carbon dioxide emission,and the expenditure structure of energy conservation and environmental protection has a significant inhibitory effect on carbon dioxide emission.Second,the efficiency of energy conservation and environmental protection expenditure of local governments in reducing carbon dioxide emissions is in a low level and rising slowly,and shows an obvious skew distribution.Technology gap effect and intra group effect are the main reasons for widening the efficiency gap of urban energy conservation and environmental protection expenditure,while the inter group difference effect has less impact.Third,in order to implement the goals of carbon intensity and carbon peak by2030,the scale and structure of local government expenditure on energy conservation and environmental protection need to be optimized and adjusted to varying degrees.In order to achieve the goals of carbon intensity and carbon peak in 2030,the expenditure on energy conservation and environmental protection at city level should increase by 0.08%-19.39% and 0.06%-72.03% respectively,and the expenditure on carbon suppression should increase by 5.25%-18.06% and17.70%-21.21% respectively.The innovation of this paper is mainly reflected in the following four aspects.First,research perspective innovation.Based on the actual government financial expenditure,this paper expounds the efficiency changes and causes of local government energy conservation and environmental protection expenditure in the process of reducing carbon dioxide emission,and focuses on the impact mechanism of local government energy conservation and environmental protection expenditure on carbon dioxide emission.It also further analyzes the optimal path of local government energy conservation and environmental protection expenditure facing important carbon dioxide emission targets.In summary,we analyze the efficiency of energy conservation and environmental protection expenditure at city level in the process of reducing carbon dioxide emissions from the perspective of a single factor,and investigate the spatial differentiation and causes of the efficiency of energy conservation and environmental protection expenditure among regions for the first time.From the new perspectives of energy-saving and environmental protection expenditure structure,technical efficiency of energy-saving and environmental protection expenditure and technological progress of energy-saving and environmental protection expenditure,we first discussed the impact mechanism of energy-saving and environmental protection expenditure on carbon dioxide emission at city level.For the first time,we studied the optimal path of energy conservation and environmental protection expenditure at city level facing important carbon dioxide emission targets from the perspective of optimization.Second,the innovation of models.We build an endogenous economic growth model including energy conservation and environmental protection expenditure,carbon suppression expenditure,carbon synergy expenditure and carbon dioxide emission,and theoretically demonstrate the impact of energy conservation and environmental protection expenditure on carbon dioxide emission and its mechanism.We extend the existing logarithmic average Divisia index model and propose two spatial production-theoretical decomposition models for the first time to make up for the lack of total-factor productivity and spatial perspective in attribution analysis.We propose a spatial meta-frontier analysis framework,introduce the concept of intra group and inter group differences for the first time,and characterize the heterogeneity of efficiency and spatial differences at the same time.We also put forward two decomposition models based on spatial meta-frontier analysis in additive mode and multiplicative mode for the first time to reveal the causes of spatial differences in energy conservation and environmental protection expenditure efficiency.We propose the optimal path models of energy conservation and environmental protection expenditure and carbon suppression respectively,which are used to quantitatively analyze the optimal path of energy conservation and environmental protection expenditure under the carbon intensity and carbon peak targets in 2030.Third,applications of unique research data.Based on the officially announced energy consumption intensity or the decline of energy consumption intensity,we estimated the energy consumption of Chinese cities,and made top-down adjustment according to the provincial energy consumption;We developed a top-down method based on Holt-winters filter model to estimate the carbon emission data of cities in China from 2018 to 2019.By overcoming the difficulties of different statistical caliber and scattered data,we manually sorted out and formed a detailed list of energy conservation and environmental protection expenditures of China’s cities with unified statistical caliber,including 64 sub expenditures.Fourth,new research findings.We found that from the perspective of time trend,the largest promoting factor for the increase of cities’ carbon dioxide emission during the period is the potential carbon inhibition intensity effect,while the largest inhibiting factor is the expenditure structure effect of energy conservation and environmental protection.Overall,the carbon suppression expenditure of the sample cities was still insufficient to give full play to the role of carbon dioxide emission reduction.Meanwhile,from the perspective of spatial differences,the differences of energy conservation and environmental protection expenditure structure and potential carbon inhibition intensity are important factors to adjust the differences of cities’ carbon dioxide emissions.We also found that the expenditure on energy conservation and environmental protection has a nonlinear impact on carbon dioxide emission,which is first promoted and then restrained,and this impact is highly related to the economic level,that is,with the improvement of the level of economic development,the scale of expenditure on energy conservation and environmental protection plays a more and more obvious role in promoting carbon dioxide emission reduction.We found that the efficiency of local government energy conservation and environmental protection expenditure in reducing carbon dioxide emissions has three convergence clubs,and were mixed in the east,central and west,rather than concentrated in the traditional sense.We found that,in order to successfully achieve the carbon peak target,the expenditure on energy conservation and environmental protection generally needs to be significantly higher than that for the carbon intensity target.