The impact of China’s low-carbon city pilot policy on carbon emissions: based on the multi-period DID model

To address climate change and promote green development, the Chinese government has implemented low-carbon city pilot policy since 2010, and continued to expand the scope of pilots. Accurately assessing the policy effects of pilot city construction is of great significance for the further promotion of low-carbon policy. Carbon emissions are included in the evaluation framework of China’s low-carbon city pilot policy, and used the panel data of 272 cities in 2000–2018 to evaluate the effectiveness of low-carbon city pilot policy based on the multi-period difference-in-differences (DID) model. Empirical findings that (1) low-carbon pilot policy could not only directly reduce carbon emissions, but also indirectly reduce carbon emissions through upgrading industrial structure and promoting technological innovation. (2) Given that there is remarkable gap in economic and social development across different regions, the policy effect is reexamined for nature resource and region location. The results indicate that carbon emissions reduction effect of low-carbon city pilot policy is more significant in resource-based cities and eastern cities. (3) Carbon emissions have significant spatial correlation, that is to say, low-carbon pilot policy has positive spillover effect on reducing carbon emissions in surrounding cities. The study provides empirical evidence for further expanding the scope of the pilot projects, as well as scientific basis for making environmental policies for carbon emissions reduction.