Performance Measurement And Mechanism Analysis Of China’s Carbon Emissions Trading Pilot Policy

As one of the most effective market-oriented tools for promoting low-carbon development,the carbon emissions trading system has been widely recognized for its important role in internalizing corporates emissions cost through carbon prices.China has launched the carbon emissions trading pilot since 2013,thus assessing emission reduction effect in China’s carbon emissions trading system and analyzing its internal emission reduction mechanism scientifically will provide reasonable proposals for China to open the national carbon emissions trading market in the future.Furthermore it contributes to achieving economic green and low-carbon development.This paper firstly draws on the theory of environmental regulation to conduct a theoretical analysis of the carbon emissions trading pilot policy,and it believes that the carbon emissions trading pilot policy not only directly affects regional carbon emissions through “defective emission reduction effects”,“green paradox effects” and “determined demand effects”,but also through other three approaches which are technological progress,industrial structure,and energy structure.Subsequently,using the panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2003 to 2016,it is initially observed that the carbon emissions trading pilot policy reduced the carbon dioxide emissions and carbon dioxide emissions per capita of the pilot provinces and cities by 4.84% and 10.95% respectively,and this paper takes the carbon emissions trading pilot as a quasi-natural experiment by applying the ?difference-in-difference? model.The empirical results show that the carbon emissions trading pilot policy can significantly reduce both carbon dioxide emissions and carbon dioxide emissions per capita in the pilot provinces and cities.Moreover,the policy?s effect on the emission reduction has continued to increase on a yearly basis.However,the carbon emissions trading pilot policy has no significant influence on the carbon dioxide emission intensity.Finally,using the mediating effects model,the carbon emissions trading pilot policy has empirically tested to achieve carbon emission reduction by promoting technological progress,optimizing industrial structure,and improving energy structure.The mediating effects of these three mechanisms are similar.These above conclusions have important policy implications for China’s green low-carbon development and expansion which also provide policy reference for our country opening carbon emissions trading market nationwide.