Can the Adjustment and Renovation Policies of Old Industrial Cities Reduce Urban Carbon Emissions?—Empirical Analysis Based on Quasi-Natural Experiments

Based on a literature review and theoretical mechanism, this paper takes the implementation point of the adjustment and transformation policy for old industrial cities as the breakthrough point, and uses a regression model to explore the impact of the adjustment and transformation policy of these old industrial cities on urban carbon emissions. This paper also robustly tests the effective mechanisms and environmental hypotheses. Overall, the implementation of the adjustment and renovation policy has significantly reduced the carbon emissions of old industrial cities by about 0.068 units. Compared with the control group cities, the pilot cities reduced carbon emissions by an average of about 310,000 tons after the implementation of the policy. Based on a summary of the excellent Chinese case experience and an empirical analysis, it can be concluded that improvements in the green innovation capacity of old industrial cities, the agglomeration of high-end service industries, and the strengthening of ecological restoration are important mechanisms that lead to reduced carbon emissions. There is no subsequent exacerbation of the carbon intensity of neighboring cities, and there is insufficient evidence to prove pollution via neighboring transfers and use of the beggar-thy-neighbor policy. The extended analysis shows that the “inverted U-shaped” CO(2) Kuznets environmental curve hypothesis is significantly present in the sample of old industrial cities, but most cities do not cross the threshold. In 2013, about 60% of the urban sample economic growth and carbon emissions showed signs of tapping into potentials and increasing efficiency (absolute decoupling) and intensive expansion (relative decoupling). In old industrial cities, the proportion of relative decoupling shows a fluctuating upward trend. In the future, the government should accurately select its own development orientation and actively seek the “best balance” between economic growth and a green and low-carbon path.