At present, China's efforts to achieve a "carbon peak" and "carbon neutrality" not only put great pressure on environmental governance to industrial enterprises with relatively high carbon emissions but also bring great pressure to their economic growth. However, with the proposal of a carbon trading policy, in-depth research was carried out to explore whether it can produce the effect of "carbon reduction and economic promotion." Based on the data of 30 provinces and cities from 2005 to 2019, this study conducted an in-depth analysis on the impact and path of carbon trading policies and industrial carbon productivity through methods such as double difference and multiple mediation effect models. The results showed that the carbon trading policy could significantly improve the level of industrial carbon productivity; at the same time, the effect will vary significantly with different pilot regions; the policy can produce significant effects of environmental regulation, structural optimization, technology, and energy structure optimization. It is suggested to promote the transformation of China's industrial economy to low-carbon development by accelerating the improvement of the legal system at the environmental regulation level, accelerating the construction of a new development system for the environmental protection industry, strengthening the innovation and research and development of green technology and accelerating the optimization of the energy structure.
Keywords: carbon neutrality; carbon peak; carbon trading policy; double-difference model; industrial carbon productivity; multiple mediation effect model.