Research on the Impact of Energy Saving and Emission Reduction Policies on Carbon Emission Efficiency of the Yellow River Basin: A Perspective of Policy Collaboration Effect

Abstract

With China’s proposed carbon peak and carbon neutrality goals, energy conservation and emission reduction are becoming increasingly urgent for the ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin. Based on a systematic combing through of the energy saving and emission reduction (ESER) policies in the Yellow River Basin, this paper empirically analyzed the impacts of objectives collaboration and measures collaboration of ESER policies on the carbon emission efficiency of prefecture-level cities in the Yellow River Basin, by comprehensively adopting the super-slack-based measure (Super-SBM) model and the two-way fixed-effect model. The results of the study found that: (1) with the continuous improvement in policies, the collaboration level of ESER policies in the Yellow River Basin has been significantly improved; (2) the dual-objective collaboration of ESER policies has a significant promotional effect on the carbon emission efficiency of the Yellow River Basin with a lag effect, while the impact of multi-objective collaboration is not significant; (3) the dual-measure collaboration and multi-measure collaboration of ESER policies can effectively promote the improvement in carbon emission efficiency in the Yellow River Basin. This indicates that, in terms of carbon emission reduction in the Yellow River Basin, the objective setting of ESER policies can not be too much, and should pay attention to the mutual coordination of different policy measures to strengthen the carbon reduction effect of ESER policies collaboration.