Abstract
The promotion of synergies between pollution and carbon reduction is a key strategic direction for building a beautiful China, with the development of clean energy being a positive step towards achieving this goal. In this study, we used China's provincial panel data from 2005 to 2020 to examine the clean energy demonstration province (CEDP) pilot as a quasi-natural experiment and utilized the synthetic control and difference-in-differences model to assess the synergistic effect of CEDP formulation on pollution and carbon reduction. We found that CEDP formulation synergistically reduced pollution and carbon and that policy implementation effectively reduced the PM2.5 emission intensity and carbon emission intensity of the pilot provinces. These were robust findings even after multiple tests. There was regional heterogeneity in the synergistic effect of CEDPs, and the policy effect of conducting the CEDP pilots was more significant in the central and western regions than in the eastern regions. Further mechanism tests showed that industrial upgrading and energy efficiency improvement were important channels for CEDP formulation to achieve the synergistic effect of pollution and carbon reduction. We proposed to enhance the evaluation system for CEDP formulation and implementation, systematically expand the coverage of CEDP pilots, and reinforce the mechanism for industrial upgrading and energy efficiency improvement.