Research On Carbon Emission Reduction Effect Of Environmental Tax Under The "Double Carbon" Target

Since the reform and opening up,China has relied on the advantages of traditional resource endowment and abundant labor force to promote industrial development,and implemented the extensive economic development mode of "high pollution,high energy consumption and low output" to promote economic growth and promote the improvement of economic development level.However,the extensive economy has brought serious environmental pollution to our country.The total carbon emission keeps rising,the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air keeps increasing,and the air quality keeps deteriorating.Environmental pollution has become an important factor restricting economic development process and quality,so to balance the relationship between economic development and environmental protection,promoting sustainable economic development,achieving "carbon peak,carbon neutralization"(" double carbon " goal)has become an important issue in the economic development of our country.In this context,China has formulated the first tax system for environmental protection--environmental protection tax,which is an important part of China’s green tax system and has an important influence on realizing the coordinated development of economy and ecology,reducing carbon emission and improving ecological environment.This paper analyzes the impact of environmental protection tax on carbon emission from theoretical and empirical perspectives.In theory,the effect mechanism of environmental tax on carbon emission is analyzed mainly from four aspects: "cost of compliance","winning and losing","innovation compensation" and "foreign direct investment".In terms of empirical analysis,based on the panel data of 30 provinces in China(except Tibet and Hong Kong,Macao and Taiwan)from 2000 to 2019,the impact mechanism of environmental protection tax on carbon emissions was analyzed mainly from three aspects: baseline regression,heterogeneity analysis and threshold regression.The results showed that:(1)there was a "U" type relationship between the environmental protection tax and carbon emission.Considering the current situation of our country’s development,the intensity of taxation of the environmental protection tax was still at the left end of the inflection point.(2)By region,the impact of environmental tax on carbon emissions shows a U-shaped relationship in both eastern and western regions,but there is a great difference in emission reduction effect.The eastern region is the strongest,the western region is the second,and the central region is the weakest.(3)There is a double threshold effect of environmental protection tax on carbon emission.At present,our environmental protection tax has not yet crossed the first threshold value,and the effect of emission reduction is limited.Based on the above research results,this paper puts forward policy suggestions to strengthen the carbon emission reduction effect of environmental protection tax from four aspects: tax scope,tax intensity,differentiated minimum tax rate and related policies.