Central inspections of environmental protection and transition for low-carbon Chinese cities: Policy intervention and mechanism analysis

The central government continues to elevate ecological considerations in local governments' incentive and penalty systems under the relentless pressure of dual carbon objectives. The central inspections of environmental protection (CIEP) program have emerged as an increasingly significant tool and institutional arrangement for environmental governance. Therefore, this study evaluates the impact of CIEP policy intervention on carbon emissions intensity employing the time-varying difference-in-differences model (TV-DID) in 233 Chinese cities from 2008 to 2019. The empirical evidence reveals that CIEP's enforcement significantly reduces carbon emissions intensity, and these effects are consistent for different model specifications. The mechanism analysis indicates that CIEP decreases carbon emissions intensity by improving energy utilization efficiency and intensifying local government environmental attention. The negative influence of CIEP on carbon emission intensity is only significant in eastern cities, high administrative hierarchy cities, and non-resource-based cities but insignificant in mid-western cities, ordinary cities, and resource-based cities. These findings support the CIEP implementation to achieve energy transition and carbon neutrality targets.