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Hu et al. Carbon Footprints 2024;3:16 Carbon Footprints
DOI: 10.20517/cf.2024.28

Original Article Open Access

Exploring carbon emission effects of national-level

industrial park policies on cities in China

1
1
Xiaru Hu , Yuquan W. Zhang 1,2 , Yong Geng 2 , Haishan Yu , Linfeng Li 1
1
China-UK Low Carbon College, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 201306, China.
2
School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China.
Correspondence to: Dr. Yuquan W. Zhang, China-UK Low Carbon College, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, No. 3 Yinlian Road,
Pudong New Area, Shanghai 201306, China. E-mail: yqwzhang@sjtu.edu.cn
How to cite this article: Hu X, Zhang YW, Geng Y, Yu H, Li L. Exploring carbon emission effects of national-level industrial park
policies on cities in China. Carbon Footprints 2024;3:16. https://dx.doi.org/10.20517/cf.2024.28

Received: 26 Aug 2024 First Decision: 29 Sep 2024 Revised: 25 Oct 2024 Accepted: 31 Oct 2024 Published: 9 Nov 2024

Academic Editor: Jennie Li Copy Editor: Fangling Lan Production Editor: Fangling Lan

Abstract
Serving as the backbone of economic development, industrial parks have strong implications for reducing carbon
emissions in China under the “carbon peak and carbon neutrality” background. This study explores the carbon
emission reduction effects of three different types of national-level industrial parks on prefectural-level cities in
China, including economic and technological development zones (ETDZs), eco-industrial demonstration parks
(EIDPs), and low-carbon industrial parks (LCIPs). Data on 204 prefectural-level cities over the period of 1999 to
2019 were examined by using the difference-in-differences method and the mediating effect model. The study
revealed that (1) the three types of industrial parks significantly reduced the intensity of city carbon emissions by
1,155, 395, and 450 tons per million CNY, respectively; (2) There existed lag effects of 7 years for the ETDZ and 3
years for the EIDP; (3) Industrial structure exhibited significant mediating effects, with ETDZ and EIDP reducing
city carbon emission intensity by 58 and 56 tons per million CNY, respectively; (4) Strong heterogeneity in the
effects was found, arising from the differences in geographical location, resources endowment, and amount of
industrial parks; and (5) ETDZ and EIDP reduced the carbon emission intensity of neighboring cities by 174 and
144 tons per million CNY, respectively, while LCIP increased that by 686 tons per million CNY. The major
contribution of this study is analyzing the city-level impacts of ETDZ, EIDP, and LCIP, three different types of
national industrial park policies with different implementation periods, regional distributions, and policy focuses.
This not only fills a gap in the analyses of ETDZ and LCIP policies in this area of research, but also draws analogies
and contrasts between the effects of the three different policies. This study suggests that the stability and long-

© The Author(s) 2024. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, sharing,
adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, for any purpose, even commercially, as
long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and
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