政务新媒体的环境治理效应——来自环保官微发帖的证据

The Environmental Governance Effect of New Media for Government Affairs:Evidence from Environmental Protection Official Weibo’s Postings

在碳达峰、碳中和目标约束和缺乏“自上而下”碳减排长效机制的情况下,政务新媒体作为推进国家治理体系和治理能力现代化的重大举措,理应为实现碳达峰、碳中和目标发挥关键作用。文章基于上市企业数据、微博发帖数据、中国综合社会调查微观数据等,考察了以生态环境局开通环保官微为代表的政务新媒体的环境治理效应。研究发现,环保官微的开通使城市碳排放强度下降约4%,下降幅度占同期碳强度减排总目标的23.5%。机制分析表明,环保官微一方面通过宣传效应引导公众选择低碳的生活方式,从而实现生活领域的直接碳减排;另一方面,通过震慑效应增进了优质企业的绿色创新绩效和外部环境绩效,从而使得企业低碳转型。此外,公众环保意识以及政民有效互动能促进环保官微的环境治理效应,但环保官微的异常关停及评论禁言阻碍了环境治理效应的发挥。同时,政府环境“硬规制”发力、城市环境信息公开透明是强化环保官微实现碳减排的重要力量。文章为数字治理视角下环境治理主体的多元化发展提供了有益思考。

In the context of the increasingly urgent constraints on carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals,and the insufficient establishment of a top-down long-term mechanism for carbon emission reduction,new media for government affairs,as a major initiative to promote the modernization of China’s system and capacity for governance,should play a key role in realizing the goals.This paper examines the environmental governance effect of new media for government affairs represented by the environmental protection official Weibo account’s joining by the Ecology and Environment Bureaus(GAWeibo).The study finds that GAWeibo leads to a decrease in the urban carbon intensity of approximately 4%.Mechanism testing indicates that GAWeibo,on the one hand,induces citizens to choose a low-carbon lifestyle through the publicity effect.On the other hand,GAWeibo’s deterrent effect enhances premium green innovation performance and external environmental performance.The abnormal shutdown or comment banning of GAWeibo hampers the environmental governance effect.Meanwhile,the government’s“hard regulation”efforts and urban environmental information transparency are important power for GAWeibo to achieve carbon emission reduction.This paper has the following contributions:(1)It explores the impact of GAWeibo on urban carbon emissions from a two-way environmental governance perspective,which breaks away from the previous single perspective based on formal institutions and macro frameworks.(2)For the first time,it conducts a quasi-natural experiment based on GAWeibo and utilizes the staggered DID method and instrumental variables to effectively deal with the endogeneity caused by reverse causation and omitted variables.(3)Taking green life and green production as entry points,it deconstructs the intrinsic logic of GAWeibo achieving carbon emission reduction,and provides Chinese experience for the environmental governance of new media for government affairs under the digital governance perspective.