AccScience Publishing / AJWEP / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/AJWEP026110068
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ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE

Toward carbon neutrality: The impact of the opening of high-speed rail on urban green total factor energy efficiency in China

Lan Yu1* ,  Chunheng Fu1 ,  Ting Yu2 ,  Yuntao Wei3
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1 Department of International Trade, School of Economics and Management, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
2 Department of Administrative Management, School of Politics and Public Administration, Soochow University, Suzhou, Jiangsu, China
3 School of Fashion Design and Engineering, Zhejiang Sci Tech University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
AJWEP, 026110068 https://doi.org/10.36922/AJWEP026110068
Received: 11 March 2026 | Revised: 9 May 2026 | Accepted: 9 May 2026 | Published online: 3 June 2026
© 2026 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
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Abstract

As a key low-carbon-oriented transport infrastructure, the opening of high-speed rail (HSR) has been widely recognized as a critical enabler to support China’s national carbon peaking and carbon neutrality strategic targets. This study employs the dynamic network slacks-based measure (DNSBM) framework to estimate urban green total factor energy efficiency (GTFEE), accounting for both internal production linkages and cross-period production inertia. Our causal identification based on the time-varying staggered difference-in-differences (DID) model revealed that HSR opening exerts a significant positive impact on urban GTFEE, and this core conclusion remained consistent across several robustness checks, including propensity score matching DID estimation, counterfactual placebo test, exclusion of concurrent policy shocks, and alternative measurement of core variables. Heterogeneity tests further indicated that the GTFEE improvement effect of HSR opening is particularly pronounced in three subgroups: smart-city pilot cities, high-innovation-level cities, and cities with advanced industrial structures. Mediating mechanism analysis verified that HSR opening promotes urban low-carbon transformation through three core transmission paths: stimulating economic agglomeration, driving industrial structure optimization, and enhancing green innovation capacity. Furthermore, the Goodman–Bacon decomposition test for heterogeneous treatment effects confirmed that the potential estimation bias of staggered DID is negligible in this study, further supporting the reliability of our baseline estimation results.

Graphical abstract
Keywords
High-speed railway
Dynamic network slacks-based measure model
Green total factor energy efficiency
Carbon neutrality
Low-carbon transformation
Funding
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the Project Supported by Scientific Research Fund of Zhejiang Provincial Education Department (25096160-F) and the Startup Fund for Internal Projects of Zhejiang Sci- Tech University (25092394-Y).
Conflict of interest
The authors declare they have no competing interests.
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Asian Journal of Water, Environment and Pollution, Electronic ISSN: 1875-8568 Print ISSN: 0972-9860, Published by AccScience Publishing
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