Energy Policy And Green Urban Development In China

Over the past 70 years of reform and opening-up,China’s economy has shifted from a stage of rapid growth to a stage of high-quality development,and green development is a necessary condition and only way to achieve high-quality development.The report of the National Congress of the Communist Party of China clearly pointed out that "we should coordinate pollution control,accelerate the green transformation of development mode" and "promote the improvement of urban and rural living environment".In the new era,exploring how to promote urban green development has become a hot issue that domestic academic circles pay close attention to.The White paper "China’s Green Development in the New Era" issued by The State Council in January 2023 emphasized that "to achieve green development,we must vigorously promote the transformation of energy production and utilization mode",highlighting the strategic significance of energy policy to promote green development.Existing studies mainly discuss the relationship between energy policy and carbon emission reduction,environmental regulation and green city development efficiency,but there are relatively few studies focusing on energy policy and urban green development.In view of this,this paper deeply discusses the relationship between energy policy and urban green development,has important theoretical and practical significance.Based on the above background,this paper takes 281 prefecture-level cities and above in China from 2000 to 2020 as research samples,uses the SBM-GML index model to measure green development,and explores how it affects urban green development from the perspective of energy policy based on the multi-period differential model.The heterogeneity of the influence of energy policy on urban green development is studied from the aspects of energy policy and urban characteristics,and the mechanism of the influence of energy policy on urban green development is further explored from the aspects of industrial structure and green technology innovation.The results show that:firstly,energy policies have a significant role in promoting the green development of Chinese cities,and this conclusion is still valid after a series of robustness tests such as parallel trend test and sample time range change.Secondly,the heterogeneity analysis shows that the energy policies of throttling and municipal level have more effect on the efficiency of urban development.The energy policies of high economic level,low carbon emission intensity,energy poverty,low administrative level cities and uncivilized cities have more obvious promoting effect on urban green development.Finally,the mechanism test results show that energy policy improves urban green development by optimizing industrial structure and promoting green technology innovation.The above conclusions reveal the relationship between energy policy and urban green development,enrich the research in the field of influencing factors of green development,but also provide suggestions for improving energy policy and further promoting urban green development,and provide empirical evidence for promoting the establishment of a new energy policy system,accelerating the improvement of urban and rural living environment and urban ecological civilization construction.