| Since the reform and opening up,China has promoted rapid economic growth with the priority development strategy of heavy industry,and this extensive development model also leads to the country’s environmental problems are constantly amplified.As the world’s largest primary energy consumer and carbon emitter,China is facing unprecedented pressure to reduce carbon emissions.The increase of carbon emissions has aggravated the greenhouse effect,increased the global average temperature,and posed a serious threat to human living environment.The proposal of the "dual-carbon" goal not only demonstrates China’s international responsibility and sense of responsibility as a major country,but also represents an inevitable choice to promote the building of a community with a shared future for mankind.In addition,China’s environmental construction is also facing two situations:on the one hand,the increasing downward pressure of the economy,the severe situation of anti-globalization;On the other hand,our country is in a critical period of stacking pressure and carrying forward heavy load of ecological civilization construction.Thus,it can be seen that how to find a path of green and low-carbon development that combines economic development with the "30·60"dual-carbon goal is a major practical problem that needs to be solved urgently in China.To achieve the dual-carbon goal as scheduled,and further promote the green low-carbon transition and ecological civilization construction,largely depends on the implementation of environmental policies in various regions.From the perspective of heterogeneous environmental regulations,this thesis studies the impact of formal and informal environmental regulations on total factor carbon productivity,which will provide important decision-making reference for China to realize the goal of "double carbon" and explore the road of green and low-carbon development in the new era.In order to explore the role of different environmental policies in the process of low-carbon governance,this thesis is based on the data of 30 provincial-level cities in China from 2005 to 2020,282 prefecture-level cities in China from 2011 to 2020 and 120 prefecture-level cities in China from 2013 to 2018.The effects and mechanisms of formal and informal environmental regulations on total factor carbon productivity were studied comprehensively using a variety of analytical tools such as synthetic control method,differential analysis method,dual fixed effect model and instrumental variable method.The main research contents and conclusions of this thesis are as follows:First,we measure the total factor carbon productivity and discuss its temporal and spatial evolution characteristics.The results show that:(1)From the time characteristics of China’s total factor carbon productivity,the overall trend of China’s total factor carbon productivity fluctuates and rises during 2005 to 2020;The dynamic evolution of kernel density estimation shows that the kernel density curve shifts slowly to the right and the total factor carbon productivity increases gradually.(2)From the perspective of spatial characteristics of total factor carbon productivity in China,the total factor carbon productivity in eastern China is higher than that in central and western China,and that in southern China is higher than that in northern China.The spatial trend analysis shows that in the east-west direction,the overall total factor carbon productivity presents a relatively flat trend at first and then a rapid rise,and the eastern part is obviously higher than the central and western part.In the North-South direction,the total factor carbon productivity shows a U-shaped trend to reverse U-shaped trend.In terms of spatial agglomeration,China’s total factor carbon productivity has a significant spatial agglomeration effect,and the agglomeration effect is mainly distributed in the regions of high and low agglomeration.(3)From the evolutionary track of the gravity center of China’s total factor carbon productivity,the gravity center of China’s total factor carbon productivity moved 51.5179km from northwest to southeast from 2005 to 2020.The effect of low-carbon development in the eastern and southern regions is better than that in the central,western and northern regions.Secondly,based on the perspective of "end-governance",this thesis discusses the low-carbon development effect of formal environmental regulation carbon emission trading system.The counterfactual reference group of each pilot province was constructed by the synthetic control method,and the influence of the pilot policy on total factor carbon productivity was evaluated scientifically,and its mechanism was further discussed.The study found that carbon trading policies on the whole promoted the improvement of total factor carbon productivity.However,due to the differences in population size,trade openness and other predictive variables among the pilot provinces,the policy effects of the pilot provinces showed heterogeneity.Among the six pilot provinces,only Beijing,Tianjin,Hubei and Chongqing had significant low-carbon governance effects.Ranking test,placebo test and synthetic control-difference-difference method all confirmed the robustness of the above results.Further mechanism analysis shows that pilot carbon trading policies mainly improve total factor carbon productivity through industrial upgrading effect,energy optimization effect,green innovation effect and energy-saving and environmental protection effect.Thirdly,based on the perspective of "source control",this thesis discusses the low-carbon development effect of formal energy trading system of environmental regulation.This thesis examines the effect of energy trading system on urban total factor carbon productivity and explores its mechanism through the method of differential and differential quasi-natural experiment.It is found that the energy trading system contributes to the improvement of urban total factor carbon productivity,and this conclusion remains valid after a series of robustness tests.Specifically,compared with non-pilot cities,the total factor carbon productivity of pilot cities increased by 14.27%.Heterogeneity analysis shows that the energy trading system has different effects on promoting low-carbon development in cities with different locations and resource endowments.It plays a role of "providing charcoal in the middle of the snow" for inland cities and "icing on the cake" for coastal cities.Compared with non-resource-based cities,the effect of promoting resource-based cities is more obvious.Mechanism analysis shows that the energy trading system mainly drives urban low-carbon development through the "dual control" effect of energy consumption,the effect of industrial structure and the effect of green innovation.Further analysis shows that the economic growth target weakens the industrial structure effect and green innovation effect of the energy trading system,and factor mismatch weakens the energy consumption "dual control" effect of the energy trading system,which negatively regulates the low-carbon governance effect of the energy trading system.Once more,this thesis also discusses the low-carbon governance effect of informal environmental regulation represented by environmental information disclosure.Based on the Urban Pollution Source Information Disclosure Index(PITI)published by a third party,120 key cities were taken as samples to empirically investigate the impact of environmental information disclosure on urban total factor carbon productivity and its mechanism.The results show that:(1)Environmental information disclosure can significantly improve urban total factor carbon productivity,and this result is still valid after passing a series of robustness tests;(2)Heterogeneity study found that environmental information disclosure had a more significant effect on the improvement of total factor carbon productivity in coastal cities,non-resource-based cities and non-old industrial base cities;(3)Further analysis shows that environmental information disclosure affects urban total factor carbon productivity mainly through industrial structure effect,energy structure effect,technological innovation effect and energy-saving and environmental protection effect.Finally,this paper builds a dual-fixed effect model,integrates the two formal environmental regulations(carbon emission trading and energy use trading)and the informal environmental regulation(environmental information disclosure)into a unified research framework,and analyzes the contribution of the three environmental regulations to total factor carbon productivity.The findings are as follows:First,carbon emission permit trading in formal environmental regulations has a significantly positive impact on total factor carbon productivity,indicating that carbon emission permit trading is conducive to driving urban low-carbon development.Compared with central and western regions,northern regions,resource-based cities and regions with a low degree of marketization,carbon emission rights trading has a more significant promoting effect on total factor carbon productivity in eastern regions,southern regions,non-resource-based cities and regions with a high degree of marketization.Second,the impact of energy use trading in formal environmental regulations on total factor carbon productivity is significantly positive,indicating that energy use trading system can effectively promote the improvement of total factor carbon productivity.Compared with central and western regions,northern regions,non-resource-based cities and regions with a higher degree of marketization,the energy use trading system has a more obvious promoting effect on the total factor carbon productivity of eastern regions,southern regions,resource-based cities and regions with a lower degree of marketization.Third,the impact of environmental information disclosure in informal environmental regulation on total factor carbon productivity is significantly positive,indicating that informal environmental regulation is conducive to urban low-carbon development,and informal environmental regulation mainly forms "industrial structure effect","energy structure effect" and"technological innovation effect" by means of environmental information disclosure,thus forcing cities to develop towards low-carbon direction.In addition,compared with the central and western regions,northern regions,resource-based cities and regions with a lower degree of marketization,the energy use trading system has a more significant promoting effect on the total factor carbon productivity of eastern regions,southern regions,non-resource-based cities and regions with a higher degree of marketization.Fourthly,through the comparison between formal and informal environmental regulations,it can be found that the contribution of formal environmental regulations to the improvement of total factor carbon productivity is significantly higher than that of informal environmental regulations. |
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