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The drivers of carbon emissions in China: the perspective of fiscal decentralization

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Abstract

Fiscal decentralization determines government behavior considerably by being a major factor influencing China’s carbon emissions. We analyze the impact of fiscal decentralization on carbon emissions on basis of the dataset of 30 Chinese areas for the period 2008 to 2020. We reveal that fiscal decentralization significantly raises carbon emissions, but worsens carbon emission efficiency. The impact of fiscal decentralization on carbon emissions varies significantly by geographical location and economic development level shocks. Local governments increase the expenditure on economic services while reducing the expenditure on basic public services as a result of the fiscal decentralization scheme, which is an important reason why the carbon emission level cannot be effectively improved. As such, it is necessary to keep pace with the times, and build a service-oriented government, and capitalize on the capabilities of local governments in terms of their service duties so as to maximize carbon reduction.

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  1. See more detail: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-cycle/

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Funding

This work was supported by the 2021 Research Programme of Panzhihua Science and Technology Bureau (grant number 2021ZX-5–1); Special Basic Cooperative Research Programs of Yunnan Provincial Undergraduate Universities’ Association (grant num-bers 202101AO070272); 2022 Research Programme of Panzhihua Science and Technology Bureau (grant number 2022ZD-S-12: 2022ZD-S-24: 2022ZD-S-26),

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Meteorological Medical Research Center, Panzhihua Central Hospital, Panzhihua, 617067, China

    Haiyang Wu & Xianzhi Li

  2. Panzhihua Central Hospital, PanZhihua, 617067, China

    Haiyang Wu, Yige Qiu, Mengjie Fan, Kang Wan & Mei Zhang

  3. West China School of Public Health and West China Fourth Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610000, China

    Xianzhi Li

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  1. Haiyang Wu
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Contributions

Haiyang Wu: conceptualization, project administration, writing — review and editing, writing — original draft, software, visualization, formal analysis. Yige Qiu: writing — original draft, software. Mei Zhang: writing — original draft, writing — review and editing, formal analysis. Funding acquisition, supervision. Xianzhi Li: writing — original draft, writing—review and editing. Kang Wan: formal analysis, methodology, data curation, writing — review and editing, validation. Mengjie Fan: writing — review and editing. Xianzhi Li: writing — review and editing, validation.

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Wu, H., Qiu, Y., Li, X. et al. The drivers of carbon emissions in China: the perspective of fiscal decentralization. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 65879–65891 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-27001-5

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