How Does The Environmental Protection Law Affect Carbon Emissions?

At the same time as China’s economic development is changing with each passing day,environmental problems are becoming increasingly prominent,the first of which is the problem of carbon emissions.At the United Nations conference,China put forward carbon reduction targets,attaining the spikes of carbon emissions by 2030,trying to realize carbon neutrality by 2060,and making China’s contribution to the world’s carbon emission reduction.In order to achieve this goal,China needs to take more effective measures to curb carbon emissions.Theoretical studies have shown that carbon emissions are affected by many factors,such as the construction of energy expense and the proficiency of technological innovation.The Environmental Protection Law,which came into force in 2015,advocates the use of clean energy by enterprises and the enhancement of technological innovation.This paper uses a double difference model and a mediating effect model to study whether the Environmental Protection Law affects carbon emissions and how it affects carbon emissions,and puts forward immediate policy recommendations for China’s carbon emission reduction based on the empirical results of this paper.In order to study whether the Environmental Protection Law affects carbon emissions,at the theoretical level,this paper analyzes the relevant factors affecting carbon emissions;at the empirical level,this paper selects data from 2006 to 2019 in 283 cities in China,selects experimental groups and control groups using dose effects,and uses a dual difference model to study whether the Environmental Protection Law affects carbon emissions.On this basis,this paper explores the timeliness and urban heterogeneity analysis of the Environmental Protection Law.In order to study the regional differences of the Environmental Protection Law,this paper divides 283 cities into three regions: the central,eastern and western regions,and explores the differences in the impact of the Environmental Protection Law on carbon emissions in the three major regions.In order to study how the Environmental Protection Law affects carbon emissions,at the theoretical level,this paper analyzes the impact mechanism of the Environmental Protection Law on carbon emissions and puts forward theoretical hypotheses;at the empirical level,the mediation effect model is used to explore whether the Environmental Protection Law affects carbon emissions by influencing total energy consumption,energy consumption structure,technological innovation level and industrial structure.The empirical results show that the implementation of the Environmental Protection Law can significantly inhibit carbon emissions,and the impact of the Environmental Protection Law on carbon emissions is urban heterogeneity,specifically,the Environmental Protection Law has a significant inhibitory effect on cities with high carbon emission levels,but not significant in cities with low carbon emission levels;the impact of the Environmental Protection Law on carbon emissions is time-sensitive,which is manifested in the first four years of first rise and then decline,and the fifth year is no longer significant;at the regional level,the Environmental Protection Law has obvious effects on carbon emission reduction in the eastern region The effect of carbon emission reduction in the central and western regions is not significant;the Environmental Protection Law affects carbon emissions by affecting total energy consumption,energy consumption structure,technological innovation level and industrial structure.