Market-stimulated Environmental Regulation,green Innovation And Carbon Emissions

Global climate change has become an environmental challenge that the world needs to face together,and how to deal with global warming and climate change and explore the road to sustainable development characterized by intelligent,green,and low-carbon emission development has attracted the attention of more and more scholars and policymakers.In recent years,China has always attached great importance to the issue of climate change and actively participated in the multilateral process of international climate negotiations,contributing to the protection of the global climate and implementing it.At present,the rapid economic development and urbanization process inevitably bring about the rapid growth of total energy consumption,which makes the contradiction between China’s resource and environmental constraints and the high-energy economic development model increasingly prominent,and faces enormous pressure to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.Therefore,taking into account the carbon emission reduction commitments and the contradiction between energy demand and resources and the environment under the new normal of the economy,China has gradually shifted from command-and-control emission reduction tools to market-led economic incentive emission reduction tools.China’s pilot policy of carbon emissions trading,launched in 2011,marks a milestone step towards using market-incentivized environmental regulations to control carbon emissions.Understanding China’s regional energy-based carbon emissions and carbon emission reduction potential,analyzing the relationship between market-motivated environmental regulation,green innovation,and regional carbon emissions from multiple perspectives,and discussing how to rely on market-motivated environmental regulation and green innovation to improve the level of regional carbon emission reduction potential is of great guiding significance for improving the national unified carbon emission rights market and formulating and implementing other market-incentivized environmental regulation policy tools,understanding and implementing the concept of green development and promoting low-carbon sustainable development.Based on this,this paper mainly follows the research idea of problem raising,literature combing,framework construction,status analysis,empirical test,policy enlightenment,and comprehensively uses a variety of quantitative analysis methods to empirically study the relationship between market-motivated environmental regulation,green innovation,and carbon emissions.First of all,this paper applies the counteract of the exogenous impact structure that China officially introduced the carbon emissions trading pilot policy,uses the synthetic control method to assess the impact of market-incentivized environmental regulation on the carbon emissions of the pilot provinces and cities,and explores the emission reduction mechanism of the carbon emissions trading pilot policy.As a typical market-incentivized environmental regulation,the carbon emission trading market mainly undertakes the multiple goals of promoting energy conservation and emission reduction development and strengthening green sustainable development.This paper further explores the impact of carbon emission trading pilot policies on green innovation from the perspective of green innovation heterogeneity.In addition,this paper also invests the research perspective to the urban level in China to mainly explore the relationship between market-stimulated environmental regulation,green innovation,and other economic and social factors and carbon emissions under different time spans from the perspective of demographic factor heterogeneity.Moreover,trying to obtain empirical evidence at the city level to help policymakers improve regional carbon emission reduction policies.Finally,to provide new ideas and a scientific basis for policymakers to tap regional carbon emission reduction potential,this paper evaluates the level of China’s interprovincial carbon emission reduction potential and its Spatio-temporal evolution characteristics under different policy preference scenarios.Further,this paper explores the relationship between market-stimulated environmental regulation and green innovation and regional carbon emission reduction potential to explore the key drivers to enhance carbon emission reduction potential.The main findings of this paper are as follows:First,the carbon emissions trading pilot policy has a carbon emission reduction effect in the pilot provinces and cities,but the emission reduction effect varies from pilot provinces.The difference in policy effect is that the pilot policy of carbon emission trading has a significant positive impact on the carbon emission reduction of Chongqing and Hubei provinces,and the emission reduction effect has increased yearly.In contrast,the emission reduction effect of Guangdong province was relatively small in the early stage,and it gradually weakened after2015.In addition,the carbon emissions trading pilot policy did not induce the innovation compensation effect,mainly through the two paths of driving industrial restructuring and improving energy allocation efficiency to promote carbon emission reduction in pilot provinces and cities.The technological innovation path was mainly manifested as a masking effect.Second,the pilot policy of carbon emission trading can significantly promote the overall level of green innovation in the pilot provinces and cities.Significant differences exist in the impact of carbon emissions trading pilot policies on green innovation and spatial spillover effects in different regions.Specifically,the pilot policy of carbon emission trading has a significant role in promoting green technology innovation and green process innovation in the pilot provinces,but has a significant inhibitory effect on green technology innovation in neighboring areas.In addition,the adjustment and optimization of industrial structure,the increase of R&D investment,and the improvement of labor quality are essential driving forces for the improvement of regional green technology innovation and green process innovation,and economic development has a limited role in green technology innovation.(2)After further dividing the sample into developed,medium,and backward areas,it was found that the pilot policy of carbon emissions trading in developed and backward areas had a significant role in promoting green innovation and spatial spillover effects,and only in medium areas had no significant impact on green innovation in local and neighboring provinces.Third,market-stimulated environmental regulation,green innovation,and regional carbon dioxide emissions have different relationships in the short and long term from the perspective of demographic heterogeneity,and this relationship will also be affected by regional carbon dioxide emission levels.Specifically,both market-stimulated environmental regulation and green innovation will contribute to an increase in regional carbon dioxide emissions in the short term.However,both will help significantly alleviate the continued increase in China’s urban carbon dioxide emissions in the long run.Meanwhile,Chinese port size and population density will not significantly reduce regional carbon dioxide emissions in the short and long term.It is worth noting that the overall improvement of the population’s quality level will help promote regional carbon dioxide emission reduction.(2)After further dividing the sample into cities with high carbon dioxide emissions and cities with low carbon dioxide emissions,it was found that market-stimulated environmental regulations were challenging to play a role in reducing regional carbon dioxide emissions in the short and long term in cities with relatively high carbon emissions.It is worth noting that the booming development of low-carbon innovative technologies is more likely to achieve a vast and lasting dividend of carbon emission reduction in cities with relatively low carbon dioxide emissions.Finally,China’s inter-provincial carbon emission reduction potential shows significant regional heterogeneity in values and evolutionary trends.There are significant differences in the impact of market-stimulated environmental regulation and green innovation on regional carbon dioxide emissions from the perspective of different policy preferences.Specifically,China’s level of carbon reduction potential significantly differed between provinces,showing slight polarization characteristics.There are differences in the distribution patterns of the level of carbon emission reduction potential in the three major regions of the eastern,central,and western regions,and the overall level of carbon emission reduction potential in the eastern region is significantly higher than that in the central and western regions.At the same time,a significant spatial agglomeration and positive correlation between China’s interprovincial carbon emission reduction potential and the degree of spatial agglomeration under the three scenarios of fairness,efficiency,and moderation shows a trend of first increasing and then weakening.In addition,the role of market-incentivized environmental regulation in promoting the improvement of local carbon emission reduction potential will be weakened when the policy prefers efficiency.Moreover,the promotion of local carbon reduction potential by marketincentivized environmental regulation will be weakened under the scenario of policy preference efficiency,and the market-incentivized environmental regulation will produce negative spatial spillover effects,inhibiting the improvement of carbon emission reduction potential in neighboring areas.It is worth noting that policy preferences will also affect the emission reduction drive effect of green innovation,which only provides a key driver for regional carbon reduction potential in efficiency-based scenarios.In conclusion,this paper constructs an analytical framework of market-incentivized environmental regulation,green innovation,and carbon emissions.Then conduct the research from a multi-perspective.The conclusion can provide empirical evidence to improve the national unified carbon emission trading market and provide new ideas and policy implications for policymakers to optimize policy tools,promote carbon emission reduction and regional coordinated sustainable development.