Global climate change and environmental pollution have become critical constraints on sustainable development. As an essential institutional arrangement reconciling economic growth with environmental protection, green finance (GF) has emerged as a core driver of the global green transition. Using China’s 2017 establishment of the Green Finance Reform and Innovation Pilot Zones as a quasi-natural experiment, this study constructs a panel of 273 Chinese cities from 2008 to 2023. It applies a difference-in-differences model and a spatial Durbin model to systematically assess the direct, indirect, and spatial spillover effects of the green finance policy (GFP) on urban pollution and carbon emission reduction (PCR).The results indicate that GFP significantly advances PCR, with stronger effects observed in eastern and western regions, old industrial bases, and resource-based cities. The mechanism analysis reveals that GFP promotes PCR by enhancing the quantity of green innovation, reducing energy consumption intensity, and promoting green energy efficiency, while industrial structure upgrading exerts a temporary masking effect. The spatial analysis further shows that while GFP significantly enhances local PCR, it exerts a negative spillover effect on neighboring cities, with the influence confined within 300 kilometers and gradually weakening with distance. This study uncovers the internal logic through which GFP facilitates pollution and carbon emission reduction at the city level, offering robust empirical evidence and providing practical policy implications for developing economies aiming to enhance GF systems and advance sustainable development.
Green finance can support sustainable urban transition, but its effectiveness depends on local institutions and cross-city interactions. Using balanced panel data for 260 Chinese cities from 2010 to 2022, this study examines the effects of green finance on total carbon emissions and carbon emission intensity using two-way fixed-effects, moderation, and spatial Durbin models. The results show that green finance significantly reduces total emissions and carbon intensity, with coefficients of −0.0954 and −0.1797, respectively. The effects are heterogeneous: green credit and green bonds reduce both outcomes, green funds mainly reduce carbon intensity, and green insurance has no significant effect; eastern cities mainly exhibit total emission reduction, central and western cities mainly exhibit intensity reduction, and northeastern cities benefit in both dimensions. Environmental regulation strengthens both effects, whereas financial governance and public participation mainly strengthen total emission control. The investment environment weakens intensity reduction, while government environmental attention weakens total emission control but strengthens intensity reduction. Spatial analysis finds significant local reductions, but the indirect effect on neighboring cities’ total emissions is positive (0.465), consistent with a cross-city pollution transfer effect. These findings show that green finance can advance sustainable urban development when instrument design, institutional governance, and regional coordination prevent the transfer of carbon burden between cities.
Against the backdrop of global climate warming and China’s “dual carbon” goals, exploring the impact of green agricultural development on urban carbon emissions is of great significance for synergistically promoting agricultural green transformation and climate governance. Taking the establishment of National Agricultural Green Development Pilot Zones as a quasi-natural experiment, this study employs panel data from 288 cities in China from 2015 to 2023 and applies the multi-period difference-in-differences (DID) method to evaluate the impact of green agricultural development on urban carbon emissions. The results show that green agricultural development significantly reduces urban carbon emissions, and this finding remains robust after a series of robustness and endogeneity tests. Mechanism tests indicate that green agricultural development achieves carbon emission reduction by reducing agricultural fertilizer application, promoting the development of digital inclusive finance, and enhancing rural innovation and entrepreneurship. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that the effect is influenced by geographical location, topographic conditions, economic development level, and agricultural production functional zones. This paper provides important policy implications for green agricultural development policies, agricultural transformation, and urban carbon emission reduction in developing countries.
Summary This study examines the energy-saving and carbon-reduction effects of China’s Ecological Civilization Pilot Demonstration Zones using panel data for 229 prefecture-level cities from 2004 to 2023 and a spatial difference-in-differences framework. The results show that the policy significantly reduces urban carbon intensity and energy intensity by 25.2% and 8.0%, respectively. Spatial effect decomposition further reveals strong positive spillovers, with indirect carbon-reduction effects exceeding direct effects. Mechanism analysis indicates that the policy operates by strengthening government environmental governance, promoting green technological innovation, upgrading industrial structure, and enhancing public environmental attention. Heterogeneity analysis shows stronger policy effects in large cities and resource-based cities. These findings provide empirical evidence for optimizing ecological civilization policies, promoting low-carbon urban transition, and strengthening regional collaborative governance.
Chuangang Li, Jiayi Wu, Xiaofan Yang et al.· iScience· 0 citations
Promoting urban green and low-carbon transformation is essential for achieving carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, yet cities continue to face financing constraints, insufficient project identification, and weak incentives for green innovation. This study treats China’s climate investment and financing pilot program as a quasi-natural experiment. It uses panel data for 242 prefecture-level and above cities from 2016 to 2023 to estimate its effect on urban green transformation with a difference-in-differences (DID) specification The results show that the pilot significantly promotes urban green transformation, and the policy effect is stronger in coastal cities, large and medium-sized cities, major urban agglomerations, and non-resource-based cities. Mechanism analysis shows that the pilot promotes urban green transformation by increasing local governments’ focus on carbon reduction, advancing green finance development, and stimulating green technological innovation. These findings support improving pilot evaluation and implementation, strengthening climate-project development and green financial instruments, and tailoring policy support to local conditions.
Under the global climate governance framework and China's "Dual Carbon" goals, reducing carbon emissions from livestock farming has become an urgent priority. Local environmental regulations, such as "Livestock-Free Zone", aim to control emissions through spatial management but may cause unintended pollution transfer effects. Using Guangdong Province as a case study, this research analyzes the effects of the policy on livestock carbon emissions based on 2014–2023 county-level panel data, combining a spatial Durbin model, a continuous difference-in-differences model and network analysis. The results show that while the policy achieved local carbon reduction (direct effect: −0.047), it triggered significant spatial spillover effects (indirect effect: +0.148), amplifying the environmental cost by 3.14-fold and shifting it to neighboring regions. Further analysis reveals hierarchical emission transfers from Pearl River Delta core cities to less developed northern and western Guangdong regions, with heterogeneous environmental outcomes. Western Guangdong benefits from efficient livestock breeding technology, showing "high total emissions yet low carbon-emission intensity," while northern Guangdong falls into the trap of absorbing industrial capacity without efficiency gains and leading to magnified environmental risks. This study extends the Pollution Haven Hypothesis to land-intensive agricultural sectors, demonstrating how micro-level enforcement disparities drive passive capacity reallocation. It highlights the unintended externalities associated with fragmented policies and suggests that cross-regional governance, coupled with technology-driven capacity transfers, can mitigate leakage risks and promote sustainable development. Local carbon reduction policies trigger a massive regional emissions spillover. The spatial carbon leakage effect is 3.14 times greater than the local reduction. Carbon transfer confirms the Pollution Haven Hypothesis at a subnational scale. Recipient regions face an "efficiency dilemma", amplifying environmental risks. Local carbon reduction policies trigger a massive regional emissions spillover. The spatial carbon leakage effect is 3.14 times greater than the local reduction. Carbon transfer confirms the Pollution Haven Hypothesis at a subnational scale. Recipient regions face an "efficiency dilemma", amplifying environmental risks.
Zhiyi Ye, Xunan Yang, Ya-Dong Cao et al.· Carbon Research· 0 citations
ABSTRACT Taking the city’s total factor energy efficiency, enterprise pollution emission and energy consumption intensity as the research objects, difference-in-difference model is used to investigate the impact of the decline of trade policy uncertainty on the city’s green and low-carbon transformation. It is found that the decline of trade policy uncertainty significantly improves the level of urban total factor energy efficiency, and significantly reduces urban CO2 emissions and PM2.5 pollution concentration. Declining trade policy uncertainty enhances urban total factor energy efficiency through the channels of expanding export market accessibility, promoting export upgrading, and driving technological innovation. It has a more pronounced effect on the green and low-carbon transformation of low-carbon and non-resource-based cities. Micro evidence from manufacturing firms suggests that declining trade policy uncertainty has remarkable significant emission reduction and energy efficiency improvement effects on firms.
Ye Guo, Fan Chai, Jin-Rong Han et al.· Emerging markets finance & t...· 0 citations