Environmental taxes promote the synergy between pollution and carbon reduction: Provincial evidence from China.

Autor: Yang Y; College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300350, PR China., Zhang Y; College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300350, PR China., Zhang Y; College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300350, PR China., Liu T; School of Geographic Science, Shanxi Normal University, Taiyuan, 030031, PR China., Xu H; College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300350, PR China; Institute of Ecological Civilization, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300350, PR China. Electronic address: seacenter@nankai.edu.cn.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Journal of environmental management [J Environ Manage] 2024 Dec; Vol. 372, pp. 123378. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Nov 24.
DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2024.123378
Abstrakt: Since its implementation in 2018, China's environmental tax has become a crucial mechanism in the nation's strategy for reducing environmental pollution. However, its synergistic effect between pollution and carbon reduction has not been adequately focused on and evaluated. This study employs the difference-in-differences (DID) model to analyze the impact of the environmental tax policy on the emissions of pollutant and CO 2 as well as the synergistic effect between them. The baseline results reveal that the implementation of environmental taxes significantly reduces the emissions of SO 2 and CO 2 and enhances the level of synergistic effects. This finding passed a series of robustness tests. Additional analysis reveals that the environmental tax promotes reductions in SO 2 and CO 2 emissions through adjustments in industrial and energy consumption structures. Furthermore, mechanism analysis from an econometric perspective provides theoretical support for the synergistic effect of pollution reduction and carbon mitigation. In the process of achieving CO 2 reduction, SO 2 plays a crucial mediating role. The heterogeneity effect suggests that in non-coastal areas and regions with larger governmental scales, the environmental tax exhibits significant emission reduction effects. It is advisable to strengthen the legal safeguard of environmental tax, dynamically adjust tax rates, and timely expand the tax scope to improve the environmental tax system and enhance its policy effects. This study provides empirical evidence and policy insights to optimize the environmental tax, offering valuable references for environmental tax reforms in developing countries.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
(Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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