Low‐carbon sustainable development driven by new energy vehicle pilot projects in China: Effects, mechanisms, and spatial spillovers

The transport sector, as one of the major carbon‐emitting industries, is under great pressure to reduce carbon emissions against the backdrop of low‐carbon sustainable development. The new energy vehicle (NEV) pilot projects provide an opportunity for China to make strides towards Dual Carbon targets. Based on the panel data of 277 cities in China from 2000 to 2019, this study acquires the time‐varying difference‐in‐difference (DID) method to evaluate the impact of NEV pilot projects on urban CO2 emissions, including the mechanisms, heterogeneity, and spatial spillover effect. The conclusions are as follows. The NEV pilot projects achieve co‐benefits in reducing the total amount and intensity of urban CO2 emissions. The mechanism analysis shows that the NEV pilot projects reduce CO2 emissions by improving energy consumption structure and increasing electric busses. For pilot cities with different resource endowments and traffic pressures, the carbon reduction effects in non‐resource‐based cities and license plate‐restricted cities are more effective. Moreover, considering the geographical distance factor, the NEV pilot projects only have spatial spillover effects on the intensity of CO2 emissions in neighboring cities. These results contribute to clarifying the carbon reduction potential of NEVs and providing references for other developing countries to carry out decarbonization in the transportation industry.