Research on the Carbon Emission Reduction Path in Zhejiang Province from the Perspective of Environmental Regulation

Abstract

This study crafted a comprehensive framework for assessing environmental regulations across 11 prefecture-level cities, utilizing an advanced CRITIC-entropy weighting approach for a holistic macro-level evaluation. By leveraging a Backpropagation Neural Network to delve into the influence of individual indicators on carbon emissions, it pinpoints the pivotal factors driving Zhejiang Province’s carbon reduction trajectory. Consequently, the findings provide robust insights and strategic guidance for future environmental protection endeavors. The research findings indicate: (1) There exists spatial heterogeneity in both the level of environmental regulation and carbon emission intensity across the 11 cities in Zhejiang Province. (2) The rationality and significance of the constructed city environmental regulation evaluation index system’s impact on carbon emission intensity have been verified. (3) Environmental regulation exerts a significant suppressive effect on carbon emission intensity in the 11 cities of Zhejiang Province, with notable regional heterogeneity in the direct effects. In response, the paper proposes: selecting appropriate intensities and methods of environmental protection legal regulation to facilitate the coordinated development of industrial structure and energy consumption structure and adopting tailored approaches to legal regulation in environmental protection to enhance the synergy between environmental oversight and industrial restructuring, thereby promoting their integrated development.