Can Low-Carbon City Pilot Policy Promote The "Double Carbon" Goal?

In order to curb global warming,the Chinese government has proposed the "Double Carbon" goal--striving to peak carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.However,the proposal of the "Double Carbon" goal is late,and the research data is relatively scarce,limiting the development of related research.Based on the consideration that the lowcarbon city pilot policy has been put forward for a long time and the relevant research data is relatively affluent,in this thesis,the low-carbon city pilot policy has been combined with the "Double Carbon" goal because of their common core--reducing carbon dioxide emissions.The ingenious combination has solved the research problem of the "Double Carbon" goal and formed a series of critical questions: Can low-carbon city pilot policy promote the realization of the "Double Carbon" goal? If so,what are the characteristics of the promotion? How does the low-carbon city pilot policy work?Answering the above questions will promote implementing the low-carbon city pilot policy and realizing the "Double Carbon" goal.Therefore,the following research has been done in this thesis.Firstly,the practice status of international and domestic low-carbon city pilot policies in this thesis has been analyzed.Secondly,a mathematical model of influencing factors of carbon emission with green technology innovation as the intermediary variable has been constructed to analyze the main influencing factors of carbon emission.Thirdly,based on the quasi-natural experiment method,the influence of the low-carbon city pilot policy on the "Double Carbon" goal has been analyzed by using the multi-period DID model and uses parallel trend test,placebo test,and other robustness test methods to test the rationality of the model.Next,the heterogeneity of this effect on policy batches has been investigated,and the spatial spillover effect of this effect has been analyzed by using spatial autocorrelation tests and the dynamic spatial Dubin model.Finally,the mediation effect model is used to investigate the mediating effect of green technology innovation in this process.The main conclusions of the study are as follows:(1)The low-carbon city pilot policy has significantly reduced the carbon emissions of the pilot cities(3.24%),which can promote the realization of the "Double Carbon" goal.(2)There is significant heterogeneity in this promotion effect,the first and second batches show a significant promotion effect,and the third batch has no significant promotion effect.(3)This promotion effect has a significant spatial spillover effect in the local and neighboring cities.Moreover,this promoting effect is overridden by the inhibiting effect in the short term,but it still shows a promoting effect in the long term.(4)Green technology innovation plays a significant partial intermediary role in this promotion,and the role is the main one(67.13%).