Environmental pollution and climate change have emerged as critical challenges to the sustainable development of China’s economy and society. Policy synergy is widely regarded as a key instrument to address these challenges effectively. In the context of energy transition, promoting the organic combination of a proactive government and an efficient market is essential for achieving coordinated governance of pollution reduction and carbon mitigation. Although existing literature suggests that hybrid policy instruments—those combining government intervention with market-based incentives—are generally more effective than single-policy approaches, whether this conclusion holds in the context of China's energy policy remains an open question.
Against the broader shift in policy evaluation from single-policy assessment to the study of synergistic effects among policy combinations, this paper examines the pollution- and carbon-reduction effects of two energy-related pilot programs: the New Energy Demonstration Cities and the Energy-Consumption Rights Trading System. Specifically, we assess the co-benefits of these dual pilots in reducing both air pollutants and carbon emissions. Our empirical findings indicate that cities implementing both pilots concurrently experienced significant reductions in sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide emissions, demonstrating robust co-benefits in pollution and carbon reduction. Moreover, the dual pilot cities outperformed single-pilot cities, confirming the existence of a synergistic effect wherein the combined impact of both policies exceeds the sum of their individual effects (“1 + 1 > 2”). This synergy stems from the coordinated interaction between government-led guidance and market incentives. The dual pilot cities achieved pollution and carbon reductions through four primary channels: innovation in clean energy technologies, substitution toward cleaner energy consumption, improved energy efficiency, and industrial restructuring. Further analysis shows that the co-benefits of the dual pilot program are more pronounced in cities with larger populations, weaker pressure from environmental targets, and richer resource endowments. Moreover, we find evidence that the dual pilot policies achieve pollution reduction through carbon mitigation, confirming an intrinsic logic of co-control. The effects also display spatial spillovers, benefiting neighboring regions and ultimately improving economic, social, and health-related welfare.
This study makes several key contributions. First, it advances the understanding of coordinated energy policy by examining how the combination of government-led and market-based instruments—specifically, the New Energy Demonstration Cities and the Energy-consuming Right Trading System—can generate synergistic effects. Second, it enriches the literature on the co-benefits of pollution and carbon reduction from the perspective of linking policy synergy with target coordination. Using the dual pilot policies as a quasi-natural experiment, this paper employs a difference-in-differences framework to assess their joint effects on pollution and carbon reduction. Third, the findings provide both theoretical and practical implications for future policy design. Clarifying the interaction between different energy policies and identifying the complementary roles of a well-functioning government and an efficient market are essential for improving the top-level design of the energy governance system. Such insights are critical for building an integrated and coherent policy portfolio capable of simultaneously addressing climate change and environmental degradation.
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