Analysis of Local Government Behaviors and Technology Decomposition of Carbon Emission Reduction under Hard Environmental Protection Constraints

摘要

In this study, carbon emission reduction (CER) behaviors of each local government of China were analyzed under hard environmental protection constraints from the perspective of the CER policies formulated by China's central government. Game theory proved that local governments will centralize superior resources to meet the requirements on CER if CER results are uncertain. The Malmquist index also empirically confirmed that China had low carbon emission efficiency before the introduction of a series of hard environmental protection systems in 2015, but the efficiency showed a leap-like increase in 2016 and 2017. Decomposition analysis of the technology used in CER revealed that the enhanced CER was attributed to the efficiency improvement of carbon emission technology. In summary, the implementation of hard environmental protection system was proven to have an immediate effect on CER, and the technical efficiency was confirmed to be the main factor for enhanced CER.