The impact of China's Central Rise Policy on carbon emissions at the stage of operation in road sector

Abstract

The Central Rise Policy has been implemented by Chinese government since 2006, which includes a series of CO2 emissions reduction measures for the road sector so as to give full play to the advantage of transportation hubs in central China, as well as to coordinate the development of economy and environment. However, the effectiveness of these measures is still obscure. This paper first adopts the spatial difference-in-differences (SDID) model to evaluate the effect of the Central Rise Policy on CO2 emissions at the stage of operation in road sector in the six provinces in central China, then explores whether there is CO2 rebound effect diminishing the effect of the Central Rise Policy based on the Linear Approximation of the Almost Ideal Demand System (LA-AIDS) model. The results show that, first, the impact of the Central Rise Policy on CO2 emissions at the stage of operation in road sector proves relatively weak during 2006–2015. Second, the energy intensity and, total turnover of the road sector, highway mileage, fuel mixture and population density produce negative spatial spillover effect, whereas the per capita CO2 emissions of the road sector shows the opposite. Finally, the CO2 rebound effect is an important factor for the effect of Central Rise Policy on CO2 emissions at the stage of operation in road sector, and the average total CO2 rebound effect for the road sector is 8.01% in the six central provinces.