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Information Disclosure, Coal Withdrawal and Carbon Emissions Reductions: A Policy Test Based on China’s Environmental Information Disclosure

Sustainability 2021, 13(17), 9758; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13179758

by Nan Li, Beibei Shi^* and Rong Kang

Reviewer 1: Anonymous

Reviewer 2: Anonymous

Reviewer 3: Anonymous

Reviewer 4: Anonymous

Sustainability 2021, 13(17), 9758; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13179758

Submission received: 17 June 2021 / Revised: 26 August 2021 / Accepted: 27 August 2021 / Published: 30 August 2021

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Towards Sustainability: Energy and Carbon Efficiency)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper assesses the effect of environmental information disclosure on regional carbon emissions reduction in China. The paper is well written and well executed. The main analysis relies on several variations of a difference-in-difference approach based on panel regression with year and regional fixed effects. This approach evaluates the effect of environmental information disclosure on carbon emissions (total or per capital or per unit of GDP). I have no concerns abut the empirical work. My comments are as follows.

The paper is very well written but could still benefit from several editorial improvements. The abstract is very long and could be shortened. There is a gap on the second line of the introduction that must be removed. It is best to use present tense throughout and hence remove past tense (see abstract: the study revealed…) More importantly, the last four paragraphs of the literature review belong to the introduction (beginning on page 4 with “By combining…”). It is always best to state the objectives and contribution of the paper in the introduction, not the literature review.

Although the empirical analysis and results are clear, the paper would benefit from additional short section before the conclusion, which would be dedicated to interpreting the results, discussing the economic consequences and clarifying the policy implications. That I believe would make the paper complete.

Finally, the effort to reduce carbon emissions takes place within a specific institutional regulatory context. The authors must briefly discuss the cap-and-trade scheme implemented in China (across the country or various provinces) and provide suitable references. It is also important to add a few sentences about the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), which is the first, largest and most prominent system for regulating carbon emissions across European countries. This scheme has attracted enormous attention in the literature recently and is a good benchmark to use in discussing the Chinese experience. The EU ETS has been extremely effective in reducing industrial carbon emissions. For the effect of the EU ETS on the economy, and an analysis of how it works, please refer to the study of Martin, Muuls and Wagner (2016). For the effect of the EU ETS on the financial performance of firms, please refer to Oestreich and Tsiakas (2015). See the references below.

Martin, R., Muuls, M., and Wagner, U.J. 2016. “The Impact of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme on Regulated Firms: What Is the Evidence after Ten Years?” Review of Environmental Economics and Policy 10, 129-148.

Oestreich, A. M., and Tsiakas, I. 2015. “Carbon Emissions and Stock Returns: Evidence from the EU Emissions Trading Scheme” Journal of Banking and Finance 58, 294-308.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

All authors have completed the revision of the article according to the revision requirements. Thank you very much for your valuable comments and suggestions, so that the quality of the manuscript can be improved. If there is also some improper expression in the revised manuscript, please let us know and we will further improve it.

Best Wishes,

All authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

I have read the article, and unfortunately, it need a lot of improvement, from my point of view. Some of the reasons are the following:

the Figures lack sources in the text (for example, figure 1, has no source anywhere in the text; the same happens with the others)
there is no reference to the figures in the text (for example, for figure 2)
the literature review is 90% (if not even more) Chinese. Proper attention should have been given to international literature on the subject even though the case study is about China
I cannot see any major contribution to the existing literature from this article
Everything is about the past (most data used for the computations ends in 2018, at the latest)
The conclusions lack proper connections to the title
There is no evidence in the Literature Review of other articles applying policy testing (as the title suggests the article shall be about), and there are no policy implications or impact detailed in the article
The data used in the model lacks a proper time framing (and is outdated since this article is going to be published after the second half of 2021)

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Best Wishes,

All authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The introduction should be revised. I can only know what the authors want to investigate at the very end of the section. I would expect a brief summary of the findings of this paper in the introduction, but I didn’t find it anywhere.
The research question is invalid. Environmental information disclosure is mainly for environmental pollutions, while carbon emission is different from environmental pollution. The EIC policy is not aimed for carbon emission reduction. Therefore, what you estimated in the paper could be just a side/spillover effect.
The calculation of total CO2 is imprecise. In equation 2, authors calculate the emissions by using emissions coefficients of natural gas, oil, and electricity. The emissions from coal is mainly attributed to electricity. This results in two biases. First, some of the coal consumptions are not for electricity generation, which is missing in the calculation. Second, part of the electricity is generated by other fuels instead of coal. This is also missing in the calculation.
In the model, they include primarygdp, secondarygdp, and tertiarygdp. This is almost perfect collinearity. Therefore, the model specification is wrong.
The measure of open is not very consistent with the literature, where mostly we use export/import share as the indicator of openness.
In section 5.2, if you have defined a dummy for east, then you don’t need another dummy “other” to do the analysis. Similar issues for results in table 4.
There are clear endogeneity issue in the results of table 5. There are reverse causality between CO2 emissions and per capita coal. Similar issues for results in table 6.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

All authors have completed the revision of the article according to the revision requirements. Thank you very much for your valuable comments and suggestions, so that the quality of the manuscript can be improved. For details, please refer to the revised description and the revised article.

If there is also some improper expression in the revised manuscript, please let us know and we will further improve it.

Best Wishes,

All authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

The topic presented in this work is really interesting. However, several challenges are required:

I analyze the single sections:

Abstract has inappropriate structure. I suggest to answer the following aspects: - general context - novelty of the work - methodology used (describe briefly the main methods or treatments applied) - main results and related interpretations.

Introduction: This section should briefly place the study in a wide context and emphasize why it is relevant carrying out the analysis. It should define the purpose of the work and its significance. In this perspective, this section is too succinct and fails to effectively point out the relevance of your contribution towards the existing literature.

For example, the authors could better discuss the need for sustainable energy transition and the role of information disclosure also with respect the role of relevant stakeholders and policy makers.

Some literature to look at:

10.1016/j.renene.2020.10.072

https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.127096

10.3390/su12114387

https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3934/energy.2018.4.645

https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.1016/j.enpol.2020.111277

https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.1016/j.enpol.2020.112120

Materials and methods: I found this section very important for the readability of the paper. However, the research methodology seems underdeveloped. Methods should be described in detail. I think the research procedure could be much more clearly described by means of a diagram also highlighting its potential and limit.

Discussions: The discussion of the results is merely descriptive and the obtained evidence is flimsy due to the fact the outcomes are not supported by an adequate discussion in light of scientific literature.

Conclusions: Conclusions must also be revised according to the previous comments. In particular, they should discuss practical implications as well as future lines of research. As it stands now, they fail to extract all the juice of your work. Is there room for greening the financial system to catalyze energy transitions?

I hope these comments might help in improving the paper and encourage the authors to move forward.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

All authors have completed the revision of the article according to the revision requirements. Thank you very much for your valuable comments and suggestions, so that the quality of the manuscript can be improved .For details, please refer to the revised description and the revised article.

If there is also some improper expression in the revised manuscript, please let us know and we will further improve it.

Best Wishes,

All authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

I appreciate the changes and the new form of the article. I leave the decision of publishing the article or not to the Editors.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thanks for your comments. First of all, thank you very much for your recognition of the contributions of this manuscript！At the same time, thank you very much for your patience to review this article again. All authors are grateful for your support and help to this article!

Thank you for your help and support for this article, which is uploaded to the system in the form of Word. Thank you again!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors revised the introduction. But it remains with several issues: (a) A research paper should start with a general research question rather than stating a specific policy target of a single country. (b) many statements are redundant, for example, “Information is one of the important resources to promote social development”. There are many other similar sentences which are not closely related to the paper. (c) it is still not very clear why the impact of environmental information disclosure on carbon emissions is important than the direct carbon control policy. Therefore, the research question needs further verification.
I appreciate the authors work by calculating the provincial level emissions. However, it needs to be clearly stated the problem of city level emission. Moreover, as shown in table 2, the magnitude of the effects of EIO on emissions varies largely between city and province level. Any explanation?
Model construction. I mentioned the collinearity issue. The authors dropped all the three variables. This is wired. I agree that the economic structure is important, this is also why the authors added them into the model in the previous version. Therefore, I don’t understand why they dropped all the three variables. Of course dropping all the three variables can avoid collinearity easily. But this will result in omitted variable bias.
Model construction. The authors added GDP per capita in the new model. Have you considered the squared term of GDP per capita as in line with EKC literature, or by using panel-based error correction model? Many papers in the literature discuss the relationship between emissions and economic growth in China.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Our modification instructions for the article have been successfully uploaded to the system in Word form. Thank you for your review.

Best wishes,

All authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear authors,

Thanks for the revised version of the manuscript. I had the opportunity to review your former submission. Although you tried to improve the manuscript I do not see any major amendments able to strengthen the paper to achieve a publishable standard. Therefore I recommend a revisions this time and provide the benefit of doubt.

An overall comment I would like to do is about the rebuttal. The rules of the games usually say that the authors should provide complete answer to the reviewers’ comment trying to explain how you worked the manuscript to adhere or confute the comments. Please do it in the next revision if you decide to do it.

The main problems pertain with the introduction, methods and conclusions.

In my previous review I provided a comment about the need to discuss, already in the introduction, ”the need for sustainable energy transition and the role of information disclosure also with respect the role of relevant stakeholders and policy makers”. You disregard my comment and do not provide any explanation. I still believe that your manuscript need this broader emphasis. Please have a carefully check to former comment and try to engage with the suggested literature that I report here for your convenience:

10.1016/j.renene.2020.10.072

https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.127096

10.3390/su12114387

https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3934/energy.2018.4.645

https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.1016/j.enpol.2020.111277

https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.1016/j.enpol.2020.112120

Method section needs to be better explained. I would really appreciate a short resume able to make the reader able to follow what you are explaining later in the text. Moreover, I do not see a proper improvement about the relevance of the methods used within the literature. I recommend to have a look at that works and move forward also considering other studies.

About conclusions: Where are policy/practical implications. As they are they seem untuneful. Please provide much details

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 4 Comments

We are grateful for the reviewer’s thoughtful comments and suggestions. We have thoroughly revised our manuscript according to the comments. Our responses (in red) and the reviewer's original comments (in black) are given below:

Comments:

Dear authors,

Response:

Point 1:

Response 1:

Thanks for your comments. We are grateful to all reviewers for improving this article so as to improve the quality and level of the article. Therefore, for the valuable comments of reviewers, we have made a detailed reply to each suggestion or question put forward by reviewers based on the suggestions of experts in combination with the modification of the article. On the one hand, it is to more clearly present the author's modification direction and content, so as to facilitate reviewers to better view and read. On the other hand, it is respect for the reviewers who review this article. You have provided targeted suggestions for the further improvement of this article and paid your valuable time and energy. All authors are very grateful for your patient guidance. We know that a detailed reply to your suggestions or questions is the greatest respect for your support and help for this article. Therefore, in the process of submitting each article in the past, we have given detailed replies and explanations to the suggestions of all experts.

For the modification description of this article, we also replied to the modification suggestions of each reviewer and explained the modification contents after the first round of modification, and we successfully uploaded the modification reply to the reviewer to the system in the form of word to facilitate the reviewer to view. Then we re-logged in to the system after submitting it successfully, and reconfirmed that the modification description and the modified version of the article were uploaded effectively. We don't know whether the system problem caused you not to see our modification reply instructions in the first round of modification. In order to prevent this kind of situation from happening again, we will improve it in the following ways:

First, First, we will paste the modification instructions in the message box in the system to ensure that you can directly see our modification reply on the system. Second, We will also summarize the direction and content of this revision, and upload them to the system in the form of attachments (Word version). You can log in to the system, open or download the attachment of modification instructions. Finally, we will send an email to the Sustainability editorial department after submitting the modified version of the article and modification instructions successfully, and ask the editor to help us check whether the system can display our replies to reviewers if they are convenient (that is, ensure that there is no display problem in the system).

Point 2:

The main problems pertain with the introduction, methods and conclusions.

10.1016/j.renene.2020.10.072

https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.127096

10.3390/su12114387

https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3934/energy.2018.4.645

https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.1016/j.enpol.2020.111277

https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.1016/j.enpol.2020.112120

Response 2:

Thanks for your comments. We checked your comments in the first round and checked the last modification. We found that this modification point was indeed omitted. We read your suggestion again and found that there was a deviation in understanding this suggestion during the first modification, resulting in the omission of modification. Last time, we understood that the necessity of sustainable energy transformation and the impact of information disclosure on stakeholders need to be discussed in the article. Therefore, we added this part to the empirical analysis. Through your patient reminder, we realized that there was a deviation in the revision direction, so we revised this part again.

We first read and summarized the literature you recommended. Then, we mainly added three contents in the introduction. First, we explain the necessity of sustainable energy transformation, mainly connecting it with the current situation of coal consumption, and illustrate the necessity and significance of promoting sustainable energy development through the current situation of coal. Second, we elaborate the relationship between the transformation and development of energy and stakeholders. Finally, the possible impact of information disclosure on all stakeholders is analyzed, and the resulting impact on energy changes. On the basis of supplementing the above contents, relevant references are added synchronously. The specific amendments are as follows:

(Line68-91): At the same time, it can’t be ignored that after the peak of China's coal consumption in 2013, there was a short decline from 2014 to 2015 [4], but from the perspective of total coal consumption, China's coal consumption level is still at a high level. The high proportion of coal in energy consumption also reflects the difficulties in the development of other energy consumption, especially renewable energy. The effective substitution of coal for renewable energy is the key to realize "coal withdrawal" and promote the reduction of carbon emissions. Therefore, Society's attention to the transformation of energy structure and the recognition of the necessity of the transformation and development of renewable energy need to be paid more attention. Promoting the transformation and development of energy is bound to require supporting policies related to energy [5], which involves the direct or indirect participation of many stakeholders. The implementation of the policy is highly dependent on the environment. Therefore, it is necessary to integrate the views of relevant stakeholders into the policy design and achieve a balanced effect in the process of promoting the implementation of energy policy [6], especially to improve citizens' participation in social energy transformation [7].Environmental information disclosure is a comprehensive presentation of the environmental situation in the region. Due to the disclosure and flow of information, it will first put pressure on the local government to strengthen environmental governance. As the regional manager and decision-maker, the government is bound to increase the restriction and supervision on the negative external environmental behavior brought by regional enterprises. At the same time, more transparent information also indirectly brings the public into the main body of environmental governance. In addition to strengthening external supervision, information disclosure provides the public with more choices in energy consumption. While promoting the change of public consumption behavior, it also promotes the change of energy structure [8].Based on this situation, whether environmental information disclosure can effectively promote the transformation of China's energy structure and achieve the goal of carbon emission reduction is worthy of in-depth analysis.

The references added are as follows:

5. Dialga, I. Evaluating Normandy's sustainable development and energy transition policies. Journal of Cleaner Production. 2021, 305(2):127096.

Falcone,P.M. Analysing stakeholders' perspectives towards a socio-technical change: The energy transition journey in Gela Municipality. AIMS Energy,2018, 6(4): 645–657.
Hfer,T.; Madlener,R. A participatory stakeholder process for evaluating sustainable energy transition Scenarios. Energy Policy, 2020,139：111277.
Bengart, P; Vogt, B. Fuel mix disclosure in Germany—The effect of more transparent information on consumer preferences for renewable energy. Energy Policy, 2021, 150，112120.
Point 3:

Method section needs to be better explained. I would really appreciate a short resume able to make the reader able to follow what you are explaining later in the text. Moreover, I do not see a proper improvement about the relevance of the methods used within the literature. I recommend to have a look at that works and move forward also considering other studies.

Response 3:

Thanks for your comments. We fully agree with you. The description of the research procedure of the article helps readers quickly understand the research content and internal logic of this article. Therefore, based on your suggestions, we present the research procedure of the article in the form of a diagram to more clearly show the research procedure of the article and internal relationship among themes. This section was added in part 4 (4.1. Model Building and Research Procedure). In addition, the main research method used in this paper is the DID method. We checked the description of the method and thought it necessary to explain it in detail, so as to help readers better understand the application principle and advantages of this method. At the same time, in order to improve the scientificity of the description of this method. we refer to new literatures to support the application of this method in this paper. The specific amendments are as follows:

(Line313): 4.1. Model Building and Research Procedure

(Line315-332): For carbon emissions, this paper mainly identifies the impact results from the micro prefecture level city and the macro provincial level. Limited by data acquisition, for prefecture level cities, this paper selects the data from 2003 to 2018 for research. For the provincial level, this paper updates the data to the latest 2019 for research. DID method is usually used to evaluate the effect of policy implementation. This method mainly extracts the "net effect" of the impact of the policy on the treatment group through the two differences between the policy implementation effect of the treatment group and the control group. Specifically, the first difference is the difference (or elimination) of the impact results caused by the natural development trend of the treatment group. On this basis, the second difference will be made between the treatment affected by the policy and the development of the control group not affected by the policy, so as to identify the policy impact. In other words, the policy effect can be identified by comparing the difference between the intervention group affected by the policy and the control group not affected [67]. The DID method is selected because of its unique advantage. This method can effectively eliminate endogenous problems [68] and eliminate the impact of other policies on regional carbon emission reduction, so as to identify the "net effect" of the implementation of environmental information disclosure policy on carbon emission. Therefore, the impartiality and effectiveness of the research results can be improved.

The references added are as follows:
1. Bertrand, M.; Mullainathan, D.S. How much should we trust differences-in-differences estimates?. Quarterly Journal of Economics. 2004, 119(1):249-275.
2. Meyer, B. Natural and quasi-natural experiments in economics. Journal of Business and Economic Statistics. 1995, 13: 151-162.
(Line343-344): In addition, in order to make the research results more logical, this paper presents

the subsequent research procedure in the form of diagram. The specific results are shown in Figure 2.

Point 4:

About conclusions: Where are policy/practical implications. As they are they seem untuneful. Please provide much details.

Response 4:

Thanks for your comments. We checked the conclusion and found that, as you said, the description of policy implications is not enough. We fully agree with you. At the end of an article, a high degree of summary is needed to form conclusions and policy suggestions based on conclusions, which is the final embodiment of the research value of an article. Therefore, based on your suggestions, we have revised and supplemented the policy implications in this paper. The specific amendments are as follows:

(Line708-750): First, whether at the prefecture level or provincial level, environmental information disclosure can effectively reduce regional carbon emissions, and this result has a better impact on the central and western regions and regions with low carbon emission density. The implementation of the information disclosure policy has expanded the ways for the public to obtain information and improved the flow of information. This policy has played a positive supporting role in strengthening environmental supervision and restricting the behavior of regional economic subjects. At present, environmental information disclosure involves 113 cities in China. By promoting the flow of information, it has effectively achieved the carbon emission reduction target, reflecting the necessity of implementing the policy. Therefore, environmental information disclosure should be promoted in all cities, especially in the central and western regions and low-carbon emission regions. At the same time, for the eastern and high carbon emission areas, the implementation intensity or mode of the policy should be adjusted in combination with the characteristics of regional economic development, so as to provide space for the policy to play a positive effect. In conclusion, it is necessary to further promote environmental information disclosure and improve the content and mode of implementation of the policy, which will be the focus of attention in the future.

Second, the realization of the good effect of carbon emission reduction is mainly attributed to the environmental information disclosure promoting the reduction of regional coal consumption and the improvement of coal utilization efficiency. Coal is the main energy causing the increase of carbon emissions. The control of coal consumption can fundamentally inhibit carbon emissions. Environmental information disclosure effectively restricts coal consumption, which provides space for the development of clean energy and the reduction of carbon emissions. Based on the effective impact of environmental information disclosure on coal withdrawal, the government should pay more attention to the impact of information flow on energy transformation, increase policy support for possible ways conducive to coal withdrawal, and expand the selection range of energy indicators in information disclosure, so as to increase the impact of information disclosure on regional energy consumption and improve the transformation space of regional energy structure.

Third, clean energy is an important factor affecting the positive effect of environmental information disclosure on "coal withdrawal". In addition, the improvement of public environmental supervision helps to strengthen the positive impact of environmental information disclosure on carbon emission reduction. From the regional perspective, the public participation in environmental protection in the western region and the northeastern region needs to be further improved. The realization of "coal withdrawal" is bound to require effective substitution of other energy resources in order to meet the normal operation of social economy. As the first choice for the transformation and development of energy structure, the vigorous development of clean energy under the background of environmental information disclosure plays a positive role in squeezing the coal market share. Therefore, in the process of promoting the transformation of energy structure, it is necessary for the government to increase the policy guidance for the development of clean energy in the whole society and give financial support and policy preferences to accelerate the substitution of clean energy for coal consumption. At the same time, improve the publicity of environmental protection to the public and guide the public to participate in environmental supervision in various ways, so as to improve the public's overall awareness of environmental protection and enthusiasm for external supervision, especially the promotion of public awareness of environmental protection participation in the western region and northeast China.This study provides strong experience support for further promoting China's environmental information disclosure, and provides reference for the realization of China's carbon emission reduction goals and the exploration of diversified paths for low-carbon sustainable development.

Point 5:

Is the content succinctly described and contextualized with respect to previous and present theoretical background and empirical research (if applicable) on the topic?

Response 5:

Thanks for your comments. Through the examination of the article, we believe that it is really necessary to improve the research content of the article. The research content should be based on the analysis of theoretical background, and state the current research background to highlight the research significance of this paper. At the same time, the research content should also be consistent with the empirical results, and on this basis, the results should be further discussed from the economic and policy implications. Therefore, we re-summarize the research background of the article, that is, the introduction, re-express the current situation of China's carbon emission and coal consumption, and present the research reason, purpose and marginal contribution of this paper more completely, so as to better highlight the research significance of this paper and improve the consistency of research content and theme. At the same time, the economic significance and policy meaning of the research results and conclusions are added, and the possible research directions in the future are discussed at the conclusion. The specific amendments are as follows:

(Line29-128): In April 2021, China's president Xi Jinping promised to achieve peaking carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 at the Leaders Summit on Climate. We can see that China has begun to promote carbon emission reduction and determination from the top level. In the face of increasing global carbon emissions, addressing the challenge of climate change has become more and more serious. The excessive increase of carbon emissions not only poses a threat to people's health [1], but also has a certain impact on the change of urban microclimate [2]. As the largest developing country, China's carbon emissions have generally shown an upward trend since 1990, and the increase rate of carbon emissions has slowed down since 2011. However, in terms of total amount, China still accounts for a relatively high proportion in global carbon emissions. As shown in Figure 1. Therefore, it is urgent to explore diversified ways of carbon emission reduction to promote the realization of China's carbon emission reduction target.

Information is one of the important resources to promote social development. The flow of information and data directly affects the decision-making behavior of economic subjects, thus changing the development mode of the whole society. As the source of promoting information acquisition and rapid flow of information, the focus on information disclosure is of positive significance to accelerate the process of information disclosure in China and expand its existing potential impact researches. Regional carbon emissions are directly affected by the energy consumption, especially the coal consumption. In turn, the current situation of regional carbon emissions can indirectly reflect the current situation of energy structure and its consumption in the target region. Therefore, the comprehensive evaluation and disclosure of the current situation of regional environmental development is very important for the overall grasp of regional energy consumption and environmental quality, Furthermore, radiation provides a strong support for the indirect information capture of regional carbon emission status. While the disclosure of environmental information directly presents the real environmental status of the region, as a way of external supervision, it also "forces" areas with weak environment to change the mode of regional economic development and energy use, thus affecting the change of regional carbon emissions. Therefore, from the perspective of information flow, the research on the "spillover" impact of carbon emission reduction brought by environmental information disclosure is an important supplement to China's exploration of diversified ways of carbon emission reduction.

In the process of exploring diversified ways of carbon emission reduction, the change of energy consumption, especially coal consumption, directly affects the emission reduction results. Therefore, the impact of information disclosure on the change of coal consumption also indirectly determines the effect of regional carbon emission reduction. The consideration of the impact of the change of energy consumption represented by coal is very important to reasonably evaluate the effectiveness of information disclosure policy. In addition, taking coal as one of the focus centers also stems from China's current energy consumption reality. As a large coal consuming country, China's coal consumption shows an upward trend in the long run, and there is a phenomenon of spatial agglomeration. The consumption in the south and east is higher than that in the north and west, respectively [3]. At the same time, it can’t be ignored that after the peak of China's coal consumption in 2013, there was a short decline from 2014 to 2015 [4], but from the perspective of total coal consumption, China's coal consumption level is still at a high level. The high proportion of coal in energy consumption also reflects the difficulties in the development of other energy consumption, especially renewable energy. The effective substitution of coal for renewable energy is the key to realize "coal withdrawal" and promote the reduction of carbon emissions. Therefore, Society's attention to the transformation of energy structure and the recognition of the necessity of the transformation and development of renewable energy need to be paid more attention. Promoting the transformation and development of energy is bound to require supporting policies related to energy [5], which involves the direct or indirect participation of many stakeholders. The implementation of the policy is highly dependent on the environment. Therefore, it is necessary to integrate the views of relevant stakeholders into the policy design and achieve a balanced effect in the process of promoting the implementation of energy policy [6], especially to improve citizens' participation in social energy transformation [7].Environmental information disclosure is a comprehensive presentation of the environmental situation in the region. Due to the disclosure and flow of information, it will first put pressure on the local government to strengthen environmental governance. As the regional manager and decision-maker, the government is bound to increase the restriction and supervision on the negative external environmental behavior brought by regional enterprises. At the same time, more transparent information also indirectly brings the public into the main body of environmental governance. In addition to strengthening external supervision, information disclosure provides the public with more choices in energy consumption. While promoting the change of public consumption behavior, it also promotes the change of energy structure [8].Based on this situation, whether environmental information disclosure can effectively promote the transformation of China's energy structure and achieve the goal of carbon emission reduction is worthy of in-depth analysis.

Based on this background, this paper aims to explore whether the disclosure of environmental information will help to reduce China's carbon dioxide emissions? Will the implementation of this policy affect the change of carbon dioxide emissions by promoting China's "coal withdrawal" process? The relationship between the development of clean energy and the change of China's coal consumption under the background of environmental information disclosure, and the external impact of the improvement of public awareness of environmental supervision on the change of carbon dioxide emission caused by environmental information disclosure are also the focus of this paper.

Through the analysis, this paper finds that environmental information disclosure can significantly reduce regional carbon emission reduction, and this result has a better impact on the central and western regions and low carbon emission density regions. The reason for this result is that information disclosure can effectively promote China's "coal withdrawal" process, thus promoting the realization of carbon emission reduction targets. At the same time, in terms of the transformation of energy structure, environmental information disclosure can accelerate the substitution of clean energy for coal in China, and the improvement of public awareness of environmental supervision will also help to strengthen the positive role of information disclosure in carbon emission reduction.

At present, the research on the ways of carbon emission reduction mainly focuses on the improvement of market mechanism and technological development, and rarely explores through the government policy level, especially rooted in the information flow, an important element resource in modern economic activities. Therefore, there is still a research gap to explore the ways of carbon emission reduction based on the perspective of information disclosure. Based on this, the marginal contributions of this paper include: (1) From the perspective of information flow, this paper discusses the carbon emission reduction effect brought by environmental information disclosure, provides a research supplement to the exploration of carbon emission reduction approaches from the perspective of information disclosure, and also provides empirical support for the promotion of environmental information disclosure process and the scientific evaluation and improvement of relevant policies.(2) From the perspective of environmental information disclosure, this paper makes an internal logical test on the relationship between information disclosure and "coal withdrawal", further analyzes the transformation of China's energy structure, and supplements the research on the impact of information on energy development, which is an important resource of current economic development.(3) The public environmental supervision is included in the research, the Externality Analysis of its impact on carbon emission reduction brought by environmental information disclosure is carried out, the research on the scope of the main body of environmental supervision is expanded, and the research support is provided for the necessity of paying attention to the cultivation of public environmental awareness and promoting the improvement of public participation in environmental protection.

(Line525-537): Environmental information disclosure promotes the reduction of coal consumption and the improvement of coal use efficiency. As the main energy causing the increase of carbon emissions, the impact of environmental information disclosure on coal will eventually be released to the change of carbon emissions. The promotion of "coal withdrawal" is the key to reduce carbon emissions. Therefore, it can be considered that the implementation of environmental information disclosure has achieved the carbon emission reduction goal by promoting the process of "coal withdrawal". At present, in the face of high coal consumption, how to better promote the reduction of coal consumption has become the key to solve the problem of carbon emission. The environmental information disclosure makes the energy dominated by coal consumption subject to external supervision, and the reduction of coal consumption and the improvement of energy utilization efficiency are the inevitable choice to realize the transformation of energy structure and carbon emission reduction target. From this perspective, promoting environmental information disclosure is effective and necessary.

(Line550-553): Based on this analysis, starting from the development of clean energy in each province, regional natural gas consumption and investment in gas infrastructure are selected as relevant proxy variables to measure the development status of clean energy in each region. The impact of clean energy development on regional "coal removal" under the background of environmental information disclosure is further discussed.

(Line556-582): It can be seen from columns (1) - (2) that environmental information disclosure improves the regional natural gas consumption and gas infrastructure investment, especially the impact on natural gas consumption has passed the 10% significance level test, indicating that environmental information disclosure is conducive to promoting the development of clean energy in the region. Columns (3) - (6) show that the impact of the development of clean energy on regional coal consumption under the background of environmental information disclosure. It can be seen that environmental information disclosure helps to promote the inhibition of clean energy development on coal consumption, that is, the promotion of environmental information disclosure helps to strengthen the "substitution effect" of clean energy on coal consumption.

The implementation of environmental information disclosure can effectively promote the development of clean energy, which proves that the impact of the implementation of this policy on the transformation of energy structure is effective. Environmental information disclosure is not only the presentation of the current environmental situation, but also the change of regional development mode brought by the implementation of this policy, especially the promotion of changes in the field of environment. The impact of environmental information disclosure policy on the change of regional production mode is an important factor affecting the sustainable development of a region. Through research, it is proved that it can indeed play the positive role of information disclosure and promote the development of regional clean energy, so as to promote the realization of regional green development mode. In this context, the development potential of energy structure transformation can be released, which is conducive to accelerating the transformation of regional energy structure. China's current coal consumption is still large, which puts great pressure on promoting the process of carbon emission reduction. In order to achieve the peak carbon dioxide emissions and carbon neutralization, it is bound to accelerate the reduction of coal consumption and make China's economic development get rid of its dependence on coal. Under this background, it is an inevitable trend to promote the development of clean energy and the transformation of energy structure. As an important subject leading the direction of energy development, the government's guidance and attention to the development of clean energy is very important.

(Line651-662): Expanding the main body of environmental protection supervision, mobilizing the public's enthusiasm for environmental protection supervision, and forming a situation of attaching great importance to regional environmental protection in the whole society, which is conducive to timely correcting the government's suboptimal decision-making and restricting the negative external impact of enterprises on the environment. Regarding the third-party public as an independent supervision subject and bringing public into the environmental protection can effectively reduce the interference of subjects directly affecting economic development on environmental supervision and maintain the independence of supervision. At the same time, as a basic part of society, the public participates in all aspects of social development, and its external supervision has a wider scope and strong effectiveness for a given period of time. Therefore, improving the public's enthusiasm for environmental supervision plays a supporting role in improving the external supervision system and improving the effectiveness of environmental protection.

(Line683-753): Starting from prefecture level cities in China, this paper regards the implementation of environmental information disclosure policy as a "quasi natural experiment", and identifies the "net effect" of environmental information disclosure on regional carbon emission reduction by constructing DID model. Through the research, it is found that the promotion of environmental information disclosure process can significantly reduce regional carbon emission, and this result has a better impact on China's central and western regions and low-carbon emission density areas, which provides policy environment support for accelerating the transformation of economic development mode in economically backward areas, and also reflects the effectiveness of this way on carbon emission constraints. With the promotion of information disclosure, the realization of carbon emission reduction target is mainly through the effective inhibition of coal consumption by the former, that is, the promotion of "coal withdrawal" process, which reduces the regional carbon emission level. From the economic level, it provides development space for China's clean energy development and the transformation of energy structure. In addition, environmental information disclosure has accelerated the substitution process of clean energy for coal and strengthened the positive impact of public external supervision on reducing carbon emissions. It can be seen that the implementation of this policy promotes the development of new energy, which is the key to the realization of "coal withdrawal". The beneficial role of environmental information disclosure and the necessity of clean energy development have also been supported. At the same time, the policy also effectively improves the public's enthusiasm to participate in carbon emission reduction, and the expansion of participants provides a favorable external environment for improving the awareness of carbon emission reduction in the whole society.

This paper aims to explore the potential feasible ways to promote the transformation of China's energy structure and reduce carbon emissions, so as to promote the realization of China's carbon neutral and low-carbon cycle development model as soon as possible. The main conclusions are as follows:

First, whether at the prefecture level or provincial level, environmental information disclosure can effectively reduce regional carbon emissions, and this result has a better impact on the central and western regions and regions with low carbon emission density. The implementation of the information disclosure policy has expanded the ways for the public to obtain information and improved the flow of information. This policy has played a positive supporting role in strengthening environmental supervision and restricting the behavior of regional economic subjects. At present, environmental information disclosure involves 113 cities in China. By promoting the flow of information, it has effectively achieved the carbon emission reduction target, reflecting the necessity of implementing the policy. Therefore, environmental information disclosure should be promoted in all cities, especially in the central and western regions and low-carbon emission regions. At the same time, for the eastern and high carbon emission areas, the implementation intensity or mode of the policy should be adjusted in combination with the characteristics of regional economic development, so as to provide space for the policy to play a positive effect. In conclusion, it is necessary to further promote environmental information disclosure and improve the content and mode of implementation of the policy, which will be the focus of attention in the future.

Second, the realization of the good effect of carbon emission reduction is mainly attributed to the environmental information disclosure promoting the reduction of regional coal consumption and the improvement of coal utilization efficiency. Coal is the main energy causing the increase of carbon emissions. The control of coal consumption can fundamentally inhibit carbon emissions. Environmental information disclosure effectively restricts coal consumption, which provides space for the development of clean energy and the reduction of carbon emissions. Based on the effective impact of environmental information disclosure on coal withdrawal, the government should pay more attention to the impact of information flow on energy transformation, increase policy support for possible ways conducive to coal withdrawal, and expand the selection range of energy indicators in information disclosure, so as to increase the impact of information disclosure on regional energy consumption and improve the transformation space of regional energy structure.

Third, clean energy is an important factor affecting the positive effect of environmental information disclosure on "coal withdrawal". In addition, the improvement of public environmental supervision helps to strengthen the positive impact of environmental information disclosure on carbon emission reduction. From the regional perspective, the public participation in environmental protection in the western region and the northeastern region needs to be further improved. The realization of "coal withdrawal" is bound to require effective substitution of other energy resources in order to meet the normal operation of social economy. As the first choice for the transformation and development of energy structure, the vigorous development of clean energy under the background of environmental information disclosure plays a positive role in squeezing the coal market share. Therefore, in the process of promoting the transformation of energy structure, it is necessary for the government to increase the policy guidance for the development of clean energy in the whole society and give financial support and policy preferences to accelerate the substitution of clean energy for coal consumption. At the same time, improve the publicity of environmental protection to the public and guide the public to participate in environmental supervision in various ways, so as to improve the public's overall awareness of environmental protection and enthusiasm for external supervision, especially the promotion of public awareness of environmental protection participation in the western region and northeast China.This study provides strong experience support for further promoting China's environmental information disclosure, and provides reference for the realization of China's carbon emission reduction goals and the exploration of diversified paths for low-carbon sustainable development.

Point 6:

Are the research design, questions, hypotheses and methods clearly stated?

Response 6:

Thanks for your comments. Firstly, this paper improves the research design of the article, which is mainly reflected in two aspects. On the one hand, the research objects of the original version are concentrated at the level of prefecture level cities in China. In order to improve the robustness of the research results, the modified version adds the research on the change of provincial carbon emissions in China on the basis of the original version, and update the latest available data time, that is, to 2019. It expands the original text in terms of research scope and time. On the other hand, the impact mechanism test focuses on the relationship between environmental information disclosure and changes in coal consumption. The advantage of this adjustment is that the research content is highly consistent with the topic, and the research content can focus more on coal, so that the analysis of coal consumption in the introduction and theoretical analysis can be consistent with the internal logic of the empirical test. The key discussion on the change of coal consumption here also lays a foundation for the test of clean energy and the analysis of energy structure transformation in further discussion, and ensures the integrity and balance of the content of the article.

Aiming at the problems, we supplement the research reason, purpose and marginal contribution of the article in the introduction, and explain in detail the focus of the research problem of this paper. In addition, for the hypothesis part, due to the adjustment of the research design, a small modification was made for hypothesis 3. In the part of research methods, we supplement the reasons for the DID model used to clarify the advantages of this method. At the same time, in order to ensure the robustness of the article, the original version analyzes the research theme from the level of prefecture level cities in China. After modification, we add the impact analysis of environmental information disclosure on China's provincial carbon emissions, and update the latest available data time, that is, to 2019. Therefore, we also supplemented the calculation method of provincial carbon emission. The specific amendments are as follows:

(Line481-537):Columns (3) and (4) show the impact of environmental information disclosure on industrial coal consumption per unit of GDP . It can be seen that environmental information disclosure also significantly reduces industrial coal consumption per unit of GDP , indicating that information disclosure is conducive to improving coal utilization efficiency. The calculation of PITI is based on the emission of sulfur dioxide and other indicators. The coal consumption is an important factor affecting the emission of sulfur dioxide in the region. Therefore, under the background of environmental information disclosure, the government is bound to strictly control the regional industrial coal consumption, and improve the utilization efficiency of industrial coal, so as to improve the environmental score by promoting the reduction of regional sulfur dioxide emissions. Hypothesis 2 is verified.

Environmental information disclosure promotes the reduction of coal consumption and the improvement of coal use efficiency. As the main energy causing the increase of carbon emissions, the impact of environmental information disclosure on coal will eventually be released to the change of carbon emissions. The promotion of "coal withdrawal" is the key to reduce carbon emissions. Therefore, it can be considered that the implementation of environmental information disclosure has achieved the carbon emission reduction goal by promoting the process of "coal withdrawal". At present, in the face of high coal consumption, how to better promote the reduction of coal consumption has become the key to solve the problem of carbon emission. The environmental information disclosure makes the energy dominated by coal consumption subject to external supervision, and the reduction of coal consumption and the improvement of energy utilization efficiency are the inevitable choice to realize the transformation of energy structure and carbon emission reduction target. From this perspective, promoting environmental information disclosure is effective and necessary.

(Line68-128)： At the same time, it can’t be ignored that after the peak of China's coal consumption in 2013, there was a short decline from 2014 to 2015 [4], but from the perspective of total coal consumption, China's coal consumption level is still at a high level. The high proportion of coal in energy consumption also reflects the difficulties in the development of other energy consumption, especially renewable energy. The effective substitution of coal for renewable energy is the key to realize "coal withdrawal" and promote the reduction of carbon emissions. Therefore, Society's attention to the transformation of energy structure and the recognition of the necessity of the transformation and development of renewable energy need to be paid more attention. Promoting the transformation and development of energy is bound to require supporting policies related to energy [5], which involves the direct or indirect participation of many stakeholders. The implementation of the policy is highly dependent on the environment. Therefore, it is necessary to integrate the views of relevant stakeholders into the policy design and achieve a balanced effect in the process of promoting the implementation of energy policy [6], especially to improve citizens' participation in social energy transformation [7].Environmental information disclosure is a comprehensive presentation of the environmental situation in the region. Due to the disclosure and flow of information, it will first put pressure on the local government to strengthen environmental governance. As the regional manager and decision-maker, the government is bound to increase the restriction and supervision on the negative external environmental behavior brought by regional enterprises. At the same time, more transparent information also indirectly brings the public into the main body of environmental governance. In addition to strengthening external supervision, information disclosure provides the public with more choices in energy consumption. While promoting the change of public consumption behavior, it also promotes the change of energy structure [8].Based on this situation, whether environmental information disclosure can effectively promote the transformation of China's energy structure and achieve the goal of carbon emission reduction is worthy of in-depth analysis.

(Line 308):Hypothesis 3: under the background of environmental information disclosure, the development of regional clean energy is conducive to promoting the process of "coal withdrawal", and the improvement of public awareness of environmental supervision is helpful to strengthen the effect of carbon emission reduction brought by information disclosure.

(Line315-332):In order to identify the "net effect" of environmental information disclosure on regional carbon emission reduction, this paper constructs a differences-in-differences (DID) model for analysis. For carbon emissions, this paper mainly identifies the impact results from the micro prefecture level city and the macro provincial level. Limited by data acquisition, for prefecture level cities, this paper selects the data from 2003 to 2018 for research. For the provincial level, this paper updates the data to the latest 2019 for research. DID method is usually used to evaluate the effect of policy implementation. This method mainly extracts the "net effect" of the impact of the policy on the treatment group through the two differences between the policy implementation effect of the treatment group and the control group. Specifically, the first difference is the difference (or elimination) of the impact results caused by the natural development trend of the treatment group. On this basis, the second difference will be made between the treatment affected by the policy and the development of the control group not affected by the policy, so as to identify the policy impact. In other words, the policy effect can be identified by comparing the difference between the intervention group affected by the policy and the control group not affected [67]. The DID method is selected because of its unique advantage. This method can effectively eliminate endogenous problems [68] and eliminate the impact of other policies on regional carbon emission reduction, so as to identify the "net effect" of the implementation of environmental information disclosure policy on carbon emission. Therefore, the impartiality and effectiveness of the research results can be improved.

(Line343-344): In addition, in order to make the research results more logical, this paper presents the subsequent research procedure in the form of diagram. The specific results are shown in Figure 2.

(Line367-374):In addition, since the relevant data of prefecture level cities are available only from 2003 to 2018, in order to ensure the robustness of the research results, this paper further calculates the provincial carbon emissions and advances the calculation time of carbon emissions to 2019, the latest updated data. The calculation of provincial carbon emission is mainly based on the consumption of coal, oil and natural gas in each province. This paper adopts the international general calculation method, that is, the energy consumption is multiplied by the carbon emission coefficient to obtain the energy carbon emission. On this basis, the total regional carbon emission is obtained by summing up all energy carbon emissions.

Point 7:

Are the arguments and discussion of findings coherent, balanced and compelling?

Response 7:

Thanks for your comments. By checking the article and referring to the published articles on Sustainability, we believe that the research results of this paper really need to be more fully discussed. The analysis of the research results should be consistent with the results of the empirical test. In addition to the surface analysis of the results, we should also have a more in-depth discussion on the economic and policy implications brought by the results, and on this basis, we should make an expanded description of the possible research directions in the future, so as to ensure the scientific and integrity of logic from the analysis of research results to the presentation of conclusions. Therefore, we explained and supplemented the economic significance and policy meaning of the analysis of the research results, and also discussed the economic significance and future research direction in the conclusions. The specific amendments are as follows:

(Line557-582): It can be seen from columns (1) - (2) that environmental information disclosure improves the regional natural gas consumption and gas infrastructure investment, especially the impact on natural gas consumption has passed the 10% significance level test, indicating that environmental information disclosure is conducive to promoting the development of clean energy in the region. Columns (3) - (6) show that the impact of the development of clean energy on regional coal consumption under the background of environmental information disclosure. It can be seen that environmental information disclosure helps to promote the inhibition of clean energy development on coal consumption, that is, the promotion of environmental information disclosure helps to strengthen the "substitution effect" of clean energy on coal consumption.

(Line683-750):Starting from prefecture level cities in China, this paper regards the implementation of environmental information disclosure policy as a "quasi natural experiment", and identifies the "net effect" of environmental information disclosure on regional carbon emission reduction by constructing DID model. Through the research, it is found that the promotion of environmental information disclosure process can significantly reduce regional carbon emission, and this result has a better impact on China's central and western regions and low-carbon emission density areas, which provides policy environment support for accelerating the transformation of economic development mode in economically backward areas, and also reflects the effectiveness of this way on carbon emission constraints. With the promotion of information disclosure, the realization of carbon emission reduction target is mainly through the effective inhibition of coal consumption by the former, that is, the promotion of "coal withdrawal" process, which reduces the regional carbon emission level. From the economic level, it provides development space for China's clean energy development and the transformation of energy structure. In addition, environmental information disclosure has accelerated the substitution process of clean energy for coal and strengthened the positive impact of public external supervision on reducing carbon emissions. It can be seen that the implementation of this policy promotes the development of new energy, which is the key to the realization of "coal withdrawal". The beneficial role of environmental information disclosure and the necessity of clean energy development have also been supported. At the same time, the policy also effectively improves the public's enthusiasm to participate in carbon emission reduction, and the expansion of participants provides a favorable external environment for improving the awareness of carbon emission reduction in the whole society.

Third, clean energy is an important factor affecting the positive effect of environmental information disclosure on "coal withdrawal". In addition, the improvement of public environmental supervision helps to strengthen the positive impact of environmental information disclosure on carbon emission reduction. From the regional perspective, the public participation in environmental protection in the western region and the northeastern region needs to be further improved. The realization of "coal withdrawal" is bound to require effective substitution of other energy resources in order to meet the normal operation of social economy. As the first choice for the transformation and development of energy structure, the vigorous development of clean energy under the background of environmental information disclosure plays a positive role in squeezing the coal market share. Therefore, in the process of promoting the transformation of energy structure, it is necessary for the government to increase the policy guidance for the development of clean energy in the whole society and give financial support and policy preferences to accelerate the substitution of clean energy for coal consumption. At the same time, improve the publicity of environmental protection to the public and guide the public to participate in environmental supervision in various ways, so as to improve the public's overall awareness of environmental protection and enthusiasm for external supervision, especially the promotion of public awareness of environmental protection participation in the western region and northeast China. This study provides strong experience support for further promoting China's environmental information disclosure, and provides reference for the realization of China's carbon emission reduction goals and the exploration of diversified paths for low-carbon sustainable development.

Point 8:

For empirical research, are the results clearly presented?

Response 8:

Thanks for your comments. We agree with you very much. Indeed, a clear presentation of the results can highlight the research value of the article and lay a foundation for explaining the economic and policy significance of the research results of the article. At the same time, a full discussion of the results is also a presentation of the guiding significance brought by the research results of the article. From the research results of the appearance to the deep discussion of the essence, the article is more complete and more in line with the research requirements of scientific papers. Therefore, we fully agree with you and revised the results and conclusions, mainly including adding comprehensive conclusions and briefly discussing the economic and policy implications of the results. Then, we made a detailed supplementary explanation on the practical significance and future research direction of each conclusion. The specific amendments are as follows:

Third, clean energy is an important factor affecting the positive effect of environmental information disclosure on "coal withdrawal". In addition, the improvement of public environmental supervision helps to strengthen the positive impact of environmental information disclosure on carbon emission reduction. From the regional perspective, the public participation in environmental protection in the western region and the northeastern region needs to be further improved. The realization of "coal withdrawal" is bound to require effective substitution of other energy resources in order to meet the normal operation of social economy. As the first choice for the transformation and development of energy structure, the vigorous development of clean energy under the background of environmental information disclosure plays a positive role in squeezing the coal market share. Therefore, in the process of promoting the transformation of energy structure, it is necessary for the government to increase the policy guidance for the development of clean energy in the whole society and give financial support and policy preferences to accelerate the substitution of clean energy for coal consumption. At the same time, improve the publicity of environmental protection to the public and guide the public to participate in environmental supervision in various ways, so as to improve the public's overall awareness of environmental protection and enthusiasm for external supervision, especially the promotion of public awareness of environmental protection participation in the western region and northeast China. This study provides strong experience support for further promoting China's environmental information disclosure, and provides reference for the realization of China's carbon emission reduction goals and the exploration of diversified paths for low-carbon sustainable development.

Point 9:

Is the article adequately referenced?

Response 9:

Thanks for your comments. We checked the literature review and referred to the published articles of Sustainability. We agree with you very much that it is really necessary to improve the references. We mainly revised it from the following two aspects. On the one hand, we expanded the number of references. As we reorganized the literature review, we also updated the references synchronously. In order to ensure the richness of the research background, we increased the number of references. On the other hand, we have expanded the number of references to international literature. Although the theme of this paper is to focus on the research on China's carbon emission reduction, the current relevant research should be combed from a wider international scope in order to improve the scientific degree of literature summary. The specific amendments are as follows:

(Line 68-91): At the same time, it can’t be ignored that after the peak of China's coal consumption in 2013, there was a short decline from 2014 to 2015 [4], but from the perspective of total coal consumption, China's coal consumption level is still at a high level. The high proportion of coal in energy consumption also reflects the difficulties in the development of other energy consumption, especially renewable energy. The effective substitution of coal for renewable energy is the key to realize "coal withdrawal" and promote the reduction of carbon emissions. Therefore, Society's attention to the transformation of energy structure and the recognition of the necessity of the transformation and development of renewable energy need to be paid more attention. Promoting the transformation and development of energy is bound to require supporting policies related to energy [5], which involves the direct or indirect participation of many stakeholders. The implementation of the policy is highly dependent on the environment. Therefore, it is necessary to integrate the views of relevant stakeholders into the policy design and achieve a balanced effect in the process of promoting the implementation of energy policy [6], especially to improve citizens' participation in social energy transformation [7].Environmental information disclosure is a comprehensive presentation of the environmental situation in the region. Due to the disclosure and flow of information, it will first put pressure on the local government to strengthen environmental governance. As the regional manager and decision-maker, the government is bound to increase the restriction and supervision on the negative external environmental behavior brought by regional enterprises. At the same time, more transparent information also indirectly brings the public into the main body of environmental governance. In addition to strengthening external supervision, information disclosure provides the public with more choices in energy consumption. While promoting the change of public consumption behavior, it also promotes the change of energy structure [8].Based on this situation, whether environmental information disclosure can effectively promote the transformation of China's energy structure and achieve the goal of carbon emission reduction is worthy of in-depth analysis.

(Line139-140): Many studies have shown that carbon trading pilot can significantly reduce China's carbon emissions [16-19], but the efficiency of seven carbon pilot projects is generally low [20].

(Line141-155): The pilot scheme of China's carbon emission trading mainly focuses on free quotas. For example, the allocation of carbon quotas in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong is mainly based on the historical method, while the baseline method is introduced in Tianjin, Hubei and Shenzhen [21]. However, for these two schemes, baseline method needs detailed emission data, while the historical method has low requirements for the amount of initial data. Therefore, in the early stage of the establishment of the carbon market, the distribution of free historical method should be the main method [22-23]. As a typical example of the early implementation of market mechanism to manage carbon emissions [24-25], the EU has been carrying out dynamic reform for carbon emission trading system [26]. Therefore, its market information operation efficiency is high [27]. In the initial stage of EU-ETS, free quota allocation is also the main method, but great changes have taken place in the third stage reform of EU-ETS [28]. It is stipulated that the auction law will become the main carbon quota allocation method from 2013, and finally realize a complete auction method [29-30]. Similarly, Cong and Wei [31] believe that auction under ETS will gradually replace free distribution.

In terms of impact effect, the carbon trading market in Hubei is considered weak form efficient [32]. Lin and Jia [33] conducted a more detailed study on the industries covered by China's carbon market, and found that the more the industries covered, the lower the carbon price, thus reducing the emission reduction motivation of the enterprises covered. It is considered that only the three industries of cement, chemical industry and electric power need to be covered to achieve the carbon emission reduction target at a lower regulatory cost. Qu [34]studied the scale of carbon trading market and found that the larger the market scale, the lower the global emission reduction cost. Martin et al. [35] also carried out a series of analysis on the impact of EU-ETS on enterprise carbon emissions. In addition, Li and Peng [36] believes that carbon tax is helpful to reduce carbon emissions and improve environmental quality, which has been confirmed by many scholars [37-38]. Furthermore, some scholars analyzed the effect of carbon tax on carbon emission reduction under specific conditions [39-40].

On the other hand, the research on carbon emission reduction path focuses on the technical level, such as CCUS (Carbon Capture，Utilization and Storage) [41-42], and other low-carbon technology innovation [43-44]. Chen et al. [45] studied the potential role of CCS in China's carbon emission reduction in 2050, and believed that CCS can reduce the marginal emission reduction cost, and the emission reduction rate can reach 45%. Craig et al. [46] compared the carbon emission reduction results of flexible CCS and conventional CCS and found that flexible CCS is an economic carbon emission reduction strategy. But at the same time, it can’t be ignored that compared with other clean energy technologies, the Chinese public still has a low understanding of CCS [47]. It can be considered that carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) technology will likely become an important approach to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and optimize the structure of energy consumption in China in the future [48]. Zhou and Li [49] analyzed the impact of technological innovation diffusion on carbon emission based on the theory of low-carbon economy and technological innovation diffusion, and believed that the key to achieving the carbon emission reduction goal is to improve the carbon emission effect level of technological innovation diffusion carbon productivity (the reciprocal of carbon emission intensity per unit GDP). Subsequently, the development of low-carbon technology plays an important role in carbon emission reduction, which has also been supported by other scholars [50-51].

In addition, for environmental information disclosure, the current research mainly focuses on air pollution and water pollution. Feng [52] discussed the impact of environmental information disclosure on air pollution and economic development, and believed that air pollution would hinder economic development, while the disclosure of environmental information effectively reduced the situation of underreporting pollution, so that the environmental report published by the government can more accurately reflect the air quality. Lin [53] studied the relationship between air pollution and environmental information disclosure from the perspective of industry, and found that there is a significant negative correlation between air pollution and enterprise environmental information disclosure, and this effect is greater in the eastern region. Zhong [54] taking sulfur dioxide as the research object, it is found that environmental information disclosure is significantly conducive to reducing sulfur dioxide emissions in the region, and environmental information disclosure has a significant positive spatial spillover effect. The improvement of environmental information transparency index of surrounding cities will help to improve the SO2 removal rate of local cities. It can be seen that the implementation of information disclosure can effectively control pollution [55].

For the governance of water pollution, studies have shown that environmental information disclosure has a strong role in promoting the governance of water pollution [56]. However, due to the increasingly wide application in water pollution prevention and control, the existing problems of water environmental information disclosure have also attracted some attention [57], including the lack of standardization of water environment information disclosure, the poor implementation of enterprise emission information disclosure, the unbalance of information supply and demand, and the weak service function of water environment data platform [58]. From the perspective of government, government agencies play a dominant role in information disclosure, but they do not play an ideal role in information disclosure [59], which will cause potential resistance to the promotion of water pollution information disclosure.

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In addition, in order to ensure the robustness of the article, the original version analyzes the research theme from the level of prefecture level cities in China. After modification, we add the impact analysis of environmental information disclosure on China's provincial carbon emissions, and update the latest available data time, that is, to 2019. It expands the original text in terms of research scope and time. After updating the research scope and time, the research results have not changed, which proves the reliability and scientificity of the research results in this paper. At the same time, because the control variables are updated, we retest the relationship between variables, and the regression results are consistent with the original version, indicating that the internal relationship of the variables studied in this paper is stable. Further, we also added descriptions to the data sources of all graphs to ensure the complete presentation of graph related information.

Thanks very much to the reviewers and editors for your valuable comments and suggestions, so that the quality of the manuscript can be improved. If there is also some improper expression in the revised manuscript, please let us know and we will further improve it.

Round 3

Reviewer 3 Report

I found the following papers are highly relevant and should be cited:

Alam, M. M., Murad, M. W., Noman, A. H. M., & Ozturk, I. (2016). Relationships among carbon emissions, economic growth, energy consumption and population growth: Testing Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis for Brazil, China, India and Indonesia. Ecological Indicators, 70, 466-479.

Hu, B., Li, Z., & Zhang, L. (2019). Long-run dynamics of sulphur dioxide emissions, economic growth, and energy efficiency in China. Journal of Cleaner Production, 227, 942-949.

Jiang, J. J., Ye, B., Zhou, N., & Zhang, X. L. (2019). Decoupling analysis and environmental Kuznets curve modelling of provincial-level CO2 emissions and economic growth in China: A case study. Journal of Cleaner Production, 212, 1242-1255.

Song, Y., Sun, J., Zhang, M., & Su, B. (2020). Using the Tapio-Z decoupling model to evaluate the decoupling status of China's CO2 emissions at provincial level and its dynamic trend. Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, 52, 120-129.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

We have modified the article according to the modification suggestions, and the specific modification instructions are presented in the form of Word.

Best wishes,

All authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

The manuscript is improved

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

We have modified the article according to the modification suggestions, and the specific modification instructions are presented in the form of Word.

Best wishes,

All authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

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