China's Blue Carbon Plan and Carbon Reduction Along the Belt and Road and Asia Pacific Region

ABSTRACTThe China's Blue Carbon Plan has made substantial strides since its inception in 2014 and has garnered positive feedback from the domestic surgical technology sector throughout its implementation. This initiative plays a pivotal role in China's goals for carbon peak and carbon neutrality. This paper employs data from the Belt and Road Initiative and 62 Asia‐Pacific countries spanning 2005 to 2021 and applies the PSM‐DID method to empirically assess the impact of China's Blue Carbon Plan on the carbon emissions of Belt and Road and Asia‐Pacific countries. The results show that (1) Blue Carbon Plan can promote carbon emission reduction and per capita carbon emission reduction in the Belt and Road countries and countries in the Asia Pacific region; (2) Blue Carbon Plan can reduce the future carbon emissions of the Belt and Road countries and countries in the Asia Pacific region, but the policy effect shows a certain weakening trend; (3) Blue Carbon Plan can reduce national carbon emissions through four pathways: fishery aquaculture production, fishery fishing production, fishery trade volume and ship fuel consumption. These results provide valuable insights into the effectiveness of blue carbon initiatives and underscore the potential of scaling up such policies to achieve broader regional and global carbon reduction targets.