Heterogeneous outcomes and fairness issues in environmental governance: Compelling evidence from China’s low-carbon city pilots

As the largest carbon emitter in the world, China has been looking for ways to transform itself into a low-carbon society and a carbon neutral country. The launch of its low-carbon city pilot (LCCP) policy is one of these important measures. So far, there were three batches of LCCP, which were issued in July 2010 (LCCP-1), December 2012 (LCCP-2), and January 2017 (LCCP-3), respectively. However, little attention had been paid on the outcomes between different batches of LCCP. In this study, using a municipal-level panel data from 2007 through 2016, we investigated LCCP’s heterogeneous effects on carbon abatement, air quality, and neighboring cities’ environmental governance by applying robust staggered difference-in-difference analysis and estimation. We found that both LCCP-1 and LCCP-2 contributed to carbon abatement, this potentially mediated by industrial structure adjustment and green innovation, respectively. However, LCCP-1 worsened air quality in the pilot cities and had a negative impact on carbon emission reductions in neighboring cities, limiting its contribution. Meanwhile, we found that LCCP-2 reduced carbon emissions in not only pilot cities but also neighboring cities. Altogether, our results reveal the importance and necessity of accurately identifying outcomes and issues when studying policy, and stress the call for local managers to pay greater attention to fairness issues in environmental governance.