Trade Policy Uncertainty and Urban Green Transition Development: Evidence from China’s WTO Accession

Taking the city’s total factor energy efficiency, enterprise pollution emission and energy consumption intensity as the research objects, difference-in-difference model is used to investigate the impact of the decline of trade policy uncertainty on the city’s green and low-carbon transformation. It is found that the decline of trade policy uncertainty significantly improves the level of urban total factor energy efficiency, and significantly reduces urban CO2 emissions and PM2.5 pollution concentration. Declining trade policy uncertainty enhances urban total factor energy efficiency through the channels of expanding export market accessibility, promoting export upgrading, and driving technological innovation. It has a more pronounced effect on the green and low-carbon transformation of low-carbon and non-resource-based cities. Micro evidence from manufacturing firms suggests that declining trade policy uncertainty has remarkable significant emission reduction and energy efficiency improvement effects on firms.