Study on Low-Carbon Technology Investment Strategies for High Energy-Consuming Enterprises under the Health Co-Benefits of Carbon Emission Reduction

Abstract

The excessive use of fossil energy has led to a yearly increase in carbon dioxide and atmospheric pollutant emissions, and climate change has become increasingly prominent, seriously affecting people’s daily lives and physical and mental health. According to statistics, rising temperatures and extreme weather phenomena due to climate change have led to a 68% increase in heat-related deaths today compared to the period between 2000 and 2004, and a 61% increase in the number of days humans face high fire risks in the same period. Currently, in order to achieve synergistic economic and environmental development and enhance the health co-benefits of carbon emission reduction, it is urgent for high-energy-consuming enterprises to make sound low-carbon technology investment decisions. Therefore, in this paper, under the carbon quota and trading policy and carbon tax policy, and considering the existence of low-carbon preferences of consumers, the financial constraints of upstream high energy-consuming enterprises and sufficient funds of downstream retailers, a low-carbon technology investment decision model under intra-supply chain financing is constructed using Stackelberg game theory. Moreover, by applying the inverse induction method, we solve the optimal decision of low-carbon technology investment with three different subsidy methods: no subsidy, cost subsidy and product subsidy. Finally, the validity of the model is verified by numerical simulation, and the effects of different influencing factors on low-carbon technology investment are analyzed. The results show that: (1) the reasonable formulation of carbon trading price, carbon tax rate, cost subsidy ratio and product subsidy coefficient are important factors to promote enterprises’ low-carbon technology investment; (2) the improvement of consumers’ low-carbon preference level and the reduction in repayment interest rate can promote enterprises’ investment; (3) compared with no subsidy, cost subsidy and product subsidy can effectively improve enterprises’ low-carbon technology investment enthusiasm, and the effect of product subsidy is better than that of cost subsidy. The effect of product subsidies is better than that of cost subsidies. This paper aims to provide suggestions for the government to refine low-carbon technology investment incentive policies and for enterprises to optimize low-carbon technology investment decisions, so as to enhance the healthy co-benefits of carbon emission reduction and achieve green and sustainable economic development.