Regional Differences in the Emission-Reduction Effect of Environmental Regulation Based on the Perspective of Embodied Carbon Spatial Transfer Formed by Inter-Regional Trade

Abstract

On the basis of the latest input–output data, this paper estimates the amount of embodied carbon emissions in inter-regional trade by constructing a multiregional input–output model to evaluate how environmental regulation stringency influences its spatial transfer. We found that environmental regulation stringency had significant positive correlation with transferring out embodied carbon emissions in trade at the national level, and a significant negative correlation with transferring in embodied carbon emissions in trade. In East and Central China, effective environmental regulation observably improves the issue of carbon emissions caused by trade, while in the western region, environmental regulation stringency had significant positive correlation with transferring in and out embodied carbon emissions in inter-regional trade. For that reason, we further use the geographically weighted regression model (GWR) to assess the spatial evolution characteristics of the intensity of environmental regulation on the transfer of embodied carbon emissions in trade; thereby, the above results are verified and show that environmental regulation has failed to play its due role.