What Motivates Local Sustainability Policy Action in China? The Case of Low-Carbon City Pilot Program

An increasing volume of literature has sought to identify factors that motivate cities to pursue sustainability and adopt climate policies. However, most empirical studies were done in Western countries, where relatively high local autonomy and low pressure on industrial growth create conditions for spontaneous policy innovations in sustainability. This paper uses China’s Low-Carbon City Pilot Program as a case to investigate motivations for local sustainability actions in an authoritarian context. Our event history analyses confirm the effects of multi-level governance on local sustainability initiatives in China, particularly horizontal competition across jurisdictions, priorities and preferences of upper-level authorities, as well as local determinants including leadership, capacity, politics, and environmental stress. The findings contribute to the comparative urban governance scholarship by highlighting the unique feature of “experimentation under hierarchy” in shaping urban sustainability policymaking in China.

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Evaluation of China’s low-carbon city pilot policy: Evidence from 210 prefecture-level cities

PLoS ONE ◽

10.1371/journal.pone.0258405 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 16 (10) ◽

pp. e0258405

Author(s):

Shuang Zhou ◽

Chaobo Zhou

Keyword(s):

Central Region ◽

Local Governments ◽

Economic Transition ◽

Empirical Studies ◽

Green Economy ◽

Western Region ◽

Eastern Region ◽

Low Carbon ◽

Carbon Policy ◽

Low Carbon City

As the largest carbon dioxide emitter, China is working towards the direction of a green economy. As an irreplaceable part of establishing a green economy, the low-carbon city pilot (LCCP) policy is implemented in many large cities in China, and the scope of implementation will be further expanded. However, to date, there has been an absence of empirical studies basing on prefecture-level cities about the evaluation of China’s LCCP policy. Evaluating and optimizing the LCCP policy is constructive to achieve the goal of China’s green economic transition. In this paper, we evaluated the effect of the LCCP policy on China’s low-carbon economic transition by using the difference-in-difference (DID) approach which can effectively alleviate endogenous problems and better evaluate this effect and the panel data of 210 prefecture-level cities in China from 2008 to 2016. The empirical analysis revealed that the LCCP policy inhibited China’s low-carbon economic transition in general. Specifically, the policy worked well in the eastern region but failed in the central region and western region by studying the regional heterogeneity and influence mechanism. The reason is that the LCCP policy can stimulate low-carbon innovation with the help of innovation offset effects in the eastern region, but it failed to do so in the central region and western region. In addition, this paper analyzed the performance of three types of policy tools adopted by local governments to implement the policy, we found that market-economic tools are valuable to improving the low-carbon economic transition in pilot areas, but command-mandatory tools and voluntary tools have failed to achieve the expected objectives. The research results of this article can provide policy recommendations for optimizing the low-carbon policy and provide a reference for countries that are determined to develop a green economy.

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Low-carbon city communication: Integrated strategies for urban and rural municipalities in Thailand

Chinese Journal of Population Resources and Environment ◽

10.1016/j.cjpre.2021.04.025 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Sukanya Sereenonchai ◽

Noppol Arunrat ◽

Thomas Neal Stewart

Keyword(s):

Low Carbon ◽

Integrated Strategies ◽

Rural Municipalities ◽

Low Carbon City

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Assessing CO2 Emissions from Passenger Transport with the Mixed-Use Development Model in Shenzhen International Low-Carbon City

Land ◽

10.3390/land10020137 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (2) ◽

pp. 137

Author(s):

Xianchun Tan ◽

Tangqi Tu ◽

Baihe Gu ◽

Yuan Zeng ◽

Tianhang Huang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Co2 Emissions ◽

Travel Demand ◽

Development Model ◽

Low Carbon ◽

Passenger Transport ◽

Transport Accessibility ◽

Mixed Use ◽

Mixed Land Use ◽

Low Carbon City

Assessing transport CO2 emissions is important in the development of low-carbon strategies, but studies based on mixed land use are rare. This study assessed CO2 emissions from passenger transport in traffic analysis zones (TAZs) at the community level, based on a combination of the mixed-use development model and the vehicle emission calculation model. Based on mixed land use and transport accessibility, the mixed-use development model was adopted to estimate travel demand, including travel modes and distances. As a leading low-carbon city project of international cooperation in China, Shenzhen International Low-Carbon City Core Area was chosen as a case study. The results clearly illustrate travel demand and CO2 emissions of different travel modes between communities and show that car trips account for the vast majority of emissions in all types of travel modes in each community. Spatial emission differences are prominently associated with inadequately mixed land use layouts and unbalanced transport accessibility. The findings demonstrate the significance of the mixed land use and associated job-housing balance in reducing passenger CO2 emissions from passenger transport, especially in per capita emissions. Policy implications are given based on the results to facilitate sophisticated transport emission control at a finer spatial scale. This new framework can be used for assessing the impacts of urban planning on transport emissions to promote sustainable urbanization in developing countries.

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Does the Low-Carbon City Pilot Policy Promote Green Technology Innovation? Based on Green Patent Data of Chinese A-Share Listed Companies

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ◽

10.3390/ijerph18073695 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 18 (7) ◽

pp. 3695

Author(s):

Jintao Ma ◽

Qiuguang Hu ◽

Weiteng Shen ◽

Xinyi Wei

Keyword(s):

Technological Innovation ◽

Technology Innovation ◽

Objective Assessment ◽

Green Technology ◽

Low Carbon ◽

Corporate Financing ◽

Multiple Dimensions ◽

Low Carbon City ◽

The Impact ◽

A Share

To cope with climate change and achieve sustainable development, low-carbon city pilot policies have been implemented. An objective assessment of the performance of these policies facilitates not only the implementation of relevant work in pilot areas, but also the further promotion of these policies. This study uses A-share listed enterprises from 2005 to 2019 and creates a multi-period difference-in-differences model to explore the impact of low-carbon city pilot policies on corporate green technology innovation from multiple dimensions. Results show that (1) low-carbon city pilot policies stimulates the green technological innovation of enterprises as manifested in their application of green invention patents; (2) the introduction of pilot policies is highly conducive to green technological innovation in eastern cities and enterprises in high-carbon emission industries; and (3) tax incentives and government subsidies are important fiscal and taxation tools that play the role of pilot policies in low-carbon cities. By alleviating corporate financing constraints, these policies effectively promote the green technological innovation of enterprises. This study expands the research on the performance of low-carbon city pilot policies and provides data support for a follow-up implementation and promotion of policies from the micro perspective at the enterprise level.

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