IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v15y2023i19p14651-d1256309.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Can Policy Instruments Achieve Synergies in Mitigating Air Pollution and CO 2 Emissions in the Transportation Sector?

Author

Listed:
  • Bowen Xiao

    (School of Business Administration, Northeastern University, Chuangxin Road, Hunnan District, Shenyang 110167, China)

  • Chengyao Xu

    (School of Business Administration, Northeastern University, Chuangxin Road, Hunnan District, Shenyang 110167, China)

Abstract

The transportation sector has significantly contributed to greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions. Consequently, there is an urgent need to investigate strategies to synergize the reduction in CO 2 and pollutant emissions in this sector. Using panel data from 30 provinces in China over the period from 2005 to 2018, this study employs spatial econometric models and mediation effect models to investigate the synergistic effects of carbon markets and environmental regulations on carbon reduction and pollution control in the transportation sector, along with the underlying transmission mechanisms. The results are as follows: (1) Carbon markets can achieve synergistic reduction effects in both CO 2 emissions and pollutant emissions, whereas environmental regulations can reduce pollutant emissions alone in the transportation sector. (2) The synergistic reduction effects of carbon markets and environmental regulations in the transportation sector exhibit regional heterogeneity. The central region can realize synergistic reductions, while the western and eastern regions may experience an increase in CO 2 and pollutant emissions and cross-regional transfers. (3) Carbon markets can achieve synergistic reduction effects in the transportation sector by influencing the industrial structure at the provincial level, transportation supply and demand at the sectoral level, and green willingness at the individual level.

Suggested Citation

  • Bowen Xiao & Chengyao Xu, 2023. "Can Policy Instruments Achieve Synergies in Mitigating Air Pollution and CO 2 Emissions in the Transportation Sector?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(19), pages 1-24, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:19:p:14651-:d:1256309
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/19/14651/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/19/14651/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Huang, Jingchang & Zhao, Jing & Cao, June, 2021. "Environmental regulation and corporate R&D investment—evidence from a quasi-natural experiment," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 154-174.
    2. Wu, Jie & Lv, Lin & Sun, Jiasen & Ji, Xiang, 2015. "A comprehensive analysis of China's regional energy saving and emission reduction efficiency: From production and treatment perspectives," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 166-176.
    3. Zeng, Qing-Hua & He, Ling-Yun, 2023. "Study on the synergistic effect of air pollution prevention and carbon emission reduction in the context of "dual carbon": Evidence from China's transport sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    4. Li, Jinying & Li, Sisi, 2020. "Energy investment, economic growth and carbon emissions in China—Empirical analysis based on spatial Durbin model," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    5. Le Yang & Jiahao Zhang & Yufeng Zhang, 2021. "Environmental Regulations and Corporate Green Innovation in China: The Role of City Leaders’ Promotion Pressure," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(15), pages 1-21, July.
    6. Nie, Hongguang & Zhou, Ting & Lu, Haiyan & Huang, Shupeng, 2021. "Evaluation of the efficiency of Chinese energy-saving household appliance subsidy policy: An economic benefit perspective," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    7. Wang, Juan & Li, Ziming & Wu, Tong & Wu, Siyu & Yin, Tingwei, 2022. "The decoupling analysis of CO2 emissions from power generation in Chinese provincial power sector," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 255(C).
    8. Hongtao Jiang & Jian Yin & Yuanhong Qiu & Bin Zhang & Yi Ding & Ruici Xia, 2022. "Industrial Carbon Emission Efficiency of Cities in the Pearl River Basin: Spatiotemporal Dynamics and Driving Forces," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(8), pages 1-22, July.
    9. Zhao, Pengjun & Zeng, Liangen & Li, Peilin & Lu, Haiyan & Hu, Haoyu & Li, Chengming & Zheng, Mengyuan & Li, Haitao & Yu, Zhao & Yuan, Dandan & Xie, Jinxin & Huang, Qi & Qi, Yuting, 2022. "China's transportation sector carbon dioxide emissions efficiency and its influencing factors based on the EBM DEA model with undesirable outputs and spatial Durbin model," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 238(PC).
    10. Xu, Jin-Hua & Guo, Jian-Feng & Peng, Binbin & Nie, Hongguang & Kemp, Rene, 2020. "Energy growth sources and future energy-saving potentials in passenger transportation sector in China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    11. Solaymani, Saeed, 2019. "CO2 emissions patterns in 7 top carbon emitter economies: The case of transport sector," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 989-1001.
    12. Zhao, Xiaoli & Yin, Haitao & Zhao, Yue, 2015. "Impact of environmental regulations on the efficiency and CO2 emissions of power plants in China," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 238-247.
    13. Dina Frutos-Bencze & Kanix Bukkavesa & Nat Kulvanich, 2017. "Impact of FDI and trade on environmental quality in the CAFTA-DR region," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(19), pages 1393-1398, November.
    14. Liu, Jiaguo & Li, Sujuan & Ji, Qiang, 2021. "Regional differences and driving factors analysis of carbon emission intensity from transport sector in China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 224(C).
    15. Guo, Li-Yang & Feng, Chao, 2021. "Are there spillovers among China's pilots for carbon emission allowances trading?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    16. Dong, Zhaoyingzi & Xia, Chuyu & Fang, Kai & Zhang, Weiwen, 2022. "Effect of the carbon emissions trading policy on the co-benefits of carbon emissions reduction and air pollution control," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 165(C).
    17. Zhang, Kun & Zhang, Zong-Yong & Liang, Qiao-Mei, 2017. "An empirical analysis of the green paradox in China: From the perspective of fiscal decentralization," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 203-211.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zhang, Pan & Wang, Huan, 2022. "Do provincial energy policies and energy intensity targets help reduce CO2 emissions? Evidence from China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 245(C).
    2. Wang, Luojia & Du, Kerui & Shao, Shuai, 2024. "Transportation infrastructure and carbon emissions: New evidence with spatial spillover and endogeneity," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 297(C).
    3. Yuanying Chi & Wenbing Zhou & Songlin Tang & Yu Hu, 2022. "Driving Factors of CO 2 Emissions in China’s Power Industry: Relative Importance Analysis Based on Spatial Durbin Model," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-15, April.
    4. Yunlong Liu & Leiyu Chen & Chengfeng Huang, 2022. "Study on the Carbon Emission Spillover Effects of Transportation under Technological Advancements," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(17), pages 1-13, August.
    5. Xu, Hao & Xu, Jingxuan & Wang, Jie & Hou, Xiang, 2023. "Reduce production or increase efficiency? Hazardous air pollutants regulation, energy use, and the synergistic effect on industrial enterprises' carbon emission," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    6. Meng Lingyan & Ze Zhao & Haider Ali Malik & Asif Razzaq & Hui An & Marria Hassan, 2022. "Asymmetric impact of fiscal decentralization and environmental innovation on carbon emissions: Evidence from highly decentralized countries," Energy & Environment, , vol. 33(4), pages 752-782, June.
    7. Qing Wang & Yuhang Xiao, 2022. "Has Urban Construction Land Achieved Low-Carbon Sustainable Development? A Case Study of North China Plain, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(15), pages 1-29, August.
    8. Jiasha Fu & Fan Wang & Jin Guo, 2024. "Decoupling Economic Growth from Carbon Emissions in the Yangtze River Economic Belt of China: From the Coordinated Regional Development Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(6), pages 1-24, March.
    9. Pang, Qinghua & Qiu, Man & Zhang, Lina & Chiu, Yung-ho, 2024. "Congestion effects of energy and its influencing factors: China's transportation sector," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    10. Du, Zhili & Wang, Yao, 2022. "Does energy-saving and emission reduction policy affects carbon reduction performance? A quasi-experimental evidence in China," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 324(C).
    11. Xu, Chong & Li, Zhiwen & Chen, Boyang & Yang, Qian & An, Jiafu, 2024. "Low-carbon development in China's transportation sector: Multidimensional characteristics and policy implications," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 289(C).
    12. Xia, Yin-Shuang & Sun, Lu-Xuan & Feng, Chao, 2022. "What causes spatial inequalities of low-carbon development in China's transport sector? A newly proposed meta-frontier DEA-based decomposition approach," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    13. Li, Wei & Hao, Ni & Lu, Can, 2023. "A PVAR dynamic correlation appraisal of China’s carbon emissions in conjunction with economic growth and clean energy use," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 219(P1).
    14. Jing Li & Hong Fang & Siran Fang & Zhiming Zhang & Pengyuan Zhang, 2021. "Embodied Energy Use in China’s Transportation Sector: A Multi-Regional Input–Output Analysis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(15), pages 1-18, July.
    15. Shiqing Zhang & Yaping Li & Zheng Liu & Xiaofei Kou & Wenlong Zheng, 2023. "Towards a Decoupling between Economic Expansion and Carbon Dioxide Emissions of the Transport Sector in the Yellow River Basin," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-26, February.
    16. Nihal Ahmed & Zeeshan Hamid & Khalil Ur Rehman & Piotr Senkus & Nisar Ahmed Khan & Aneta Wysokińska-Senkus & Barbara Hadryjańska, 2023. "Environmental Regulation, Fiscal Decentralization, and Agricultural Carbon Intensity: A Challenge to Ecological Sustainability Policies in the United States," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-21, March.
    17. Pinjie Xie & Sheng Wang & Jie Liao & Feihu Sun, 2024. "Study on Spatial-Temporal Disparities and Factors Influencing Electricity Consumption Carbon Emissions in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(10), pages 1-20, May.
    18. Ping Cao & Xiaoxiao Li & Yu Cheng & Han Shen, 2022. "Temporal-Spatial Evolution and Driving Factors of Global Carbon Emission Efficiency," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(22), pages 1-20, November.
    19. Xu Guo & Lin Fu & Xiaohua Sun, 2021. "Can Environmental Regulations Promote Greenhouse Gas Abatement in OECD Countries? Command-and-Control vs. Market-Based Policies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-18, June.
    20. Dong, Jia & Li, Cunbin, 2022. "Scenario prediction and decoupling analysis of carbon emission in Jiangsu Province, China," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:19:p:14651-:d:1256309. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.