Is High Speed Rail heading towards a Low Carbon Economy? Evidence from a Quasi Natural Experiment in China

Existing studies have investigated the environmental dividends of substituting high speed rail for other energy intensive vehicles from an engineering standpoint, but they have yet to explore the economic effects of high speed rail and the associated carbon emission reduction benefits. To fill the research gap, we use panel data from 285 Chinese cities between 2004 and 2014, and employ a difference in difference s model to empirically examine the impact of high speed r ail opening on industrial CO 2 emissions. Our results show that the opening of high speed rail reduces industrial carbon emissions significantly. This finding is robust and is unaffected by outliers, control group selection, time trends, geography and expectation factors, or endogeneity. The mechanism test reveals that the structural transformation effect, technological innovation effect, and investment attractiveness effect are three intermediate influence channels. Further research finds that the emission reduction benefit rises as the spatial and temporal intensities of high speed rail opening ascend the ladder , and high speed rail service has a spillover effect within an 80 kilometer radius. Moreover, the carbon benefit of the Beijing Shanghai high speed rail line far surpasses its carbon footprint, indicating that the route is green after accounting for economic emission reductions that existing studies ignored. Based on these findings, we recommend that China accelerate high speed rail expansion in order to reduce carbon emissions in a scientific and responsible manner