低碳城市试点政策有利于碳减排吗?——基于准自然实验的研究

Are pilot policies for low carbon cities beneficial for carbon reduction--A study based on quasi-natural experiments

以“低碳城市试点政策”为准自然实验,基于2005-2017年中国210个城市的面板数据,采用多时点双重差分法考察低碳城市试点政策对于碳排放的影响。研究发现,低碳城市试点政策显著降低了试点城市的碳排放约4.79个百分点。动态效应表明,低碳城市试点政策达到了碳减排的预期效应,并且具有长期性与持续性。异质性分析表明,低碳城市试点政策的作用效果存在显著的区域差异,其对于南方城市与非资源城市的影响更为显著;同时在经济规模与城市规模上,低碳城市试点政策对于中西部城市、高经济水平和低经济水平地区的碳减排效应更为显著。机制分析表明,低碳城市试点政策主要通过降低能源消费、提升技术水平和打造低碳交通体系来减少碳排放。

This paper investigates the impact of low-carbon city pilot policies on carbon emissions using a multi-temporal double difference method based on a panel of 210 Chinese cities from 2005-2017 as a quasi-natural experiment.It is found that the low-carbon city pilot policy significantly reduces the carbon emissions of the pilot cities by about 4.79 percentage points.The dynamic effect indicates that the low-carbon city pilot policy achieves the expected effect of carbon emission reduction,which is long-term and sustainable.The heterogeneity analysis shows that there are significant regional differences in the effects of the pilot low-carbon city policy,with more significant effects on southern cities and non-resource cities,while the effect of the pilot low-carbon city policy on carbon emission reduction is more significant for central and western cities,high and low economic level regions,and super-and medium-sized cities in terms of economic scale and city size.The mechanism analysis shows that the low-carbon city pilot policy mainly reduces carbon emissions by reducing energy consumption,upgrading technology and creating a low-carbon transportation system.