Search

A growing number of countries worldwide have committed to achieving net zero emissions targets by around mid-century since the Paris Agreement. As the world's greatest carbon emitter and the largest developing economy, China has also set clear targets for carbon peaking by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060. Carbon-reduction AI applications promote the green economy. However, there is no comprehensive explanation of how AI affects carbon emissions. Based on panel data for 270 Chinese cities from 2011 to 2017, this study uses the Bartik method to quantify data on manufacturing firms and robots in China and demonstrates the effect of AI on carbon emissions. The results of the study indicate that (1) artificial intelligence has a significant inhibitory effect on carbon emission intensity; (2) the carbon emission reduction effect of AI is more significant in super- and megacities, large cities, and cities with better infrastructure and advanced technology, whereas it is not significant in small and medium cities, and cities with poor infrastructure and low technology level; (3) artificial intelligence reduces carbon emissions through optimizing industrial structure, enhancing information infrastructure, and improving green technology innovation. In order to achieve carbon peaking and carbon neutrality as quickly as possible during economic development, China should make greater efforts to apply AI in production and life, infrastructure construction, energy conservation, and emission reduction, particularly in developed cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2011 to 2019 are analyzed by the spatial measure model and the threshold regression model. The results show that the air quality level is positively correlated with green finance, but there is no spatial effect. The spatial effect of the three influencing factors, including the degree of openness, the level of infrastructure, and the level of education, is the crowding-out effect. At the same time, variables such as human resource level, air quality, and infrastructure construction level all have threshold effects in the relationship between green finance and economic development. The research conclusions suggested that local governments at all levels should formulate policies according to the actual situation to promote the development of provinces' intensive, intelligent, and green development, and build a regionally-linked green finance development model, thereby promoting the improvement of green finance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global warming has emerged as a serious threat to humans and sustainable development. China is under increasing pressure to curb its carbon emissions as the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide. By combining the Tapio decoupling model and the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) framework, this paper explores the relationship between China's carbon emissions and economic growth. Based on panel data of 29 provinces from 2007 to 2016, this paper quantitatively estimates the nexus of carbon emissions and economic development for the whole nation and the decoupling status of individual provinces. There is empirical evidence for the conventional EKC hypothesis, showing that the relationship between carbon emissions and per capita gross domestic product (GDP) is an inverted U shape and that the inflection point will not be attained soon. Moreover, following the estimation results of the Tapio decoupling model, there were significant differences between individual provinces in decoupling status. As a result, differentiated and targeted environmental regulations and policies regarding energy consumption and carbon emissions should be reasonably formulated for different provinces and regions based on the corresponding level of economic development and decoupling status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indepth research on the impact of energy endowment on provincial green development provides a new perspective for achieving high-quality provincial economic development. Based on 30 provinces' panel data in China from 2009 to 2020, this study first constructs an index system to analyze energy endowment and provincial green development; then it explores the mechanism by which energy endowment affects provincial green development, including the moderating role of environmental regulation and the mediating role of energy efficiency. The results show that energy endowment can significantly curb provincial green development when environmental regulations are not taken into account. Moreover, environmental regulation has moderated the process of energy endowment affecting provincial green development. Energy efficiency has mediated the process of energy endowment affecting provincial green development. From a geographical viewpoint, the moderating effect of environmental regulation has regional heterogeneity but the mediating effect of energy efficiency does not. The conclusions of this research may supply applicable recommendations for provincial green development in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In China, one of the most pressing issues that have to be addressed is how to best manage the link between energy consumption and sustainable development. Given this context, the goal of the current article is to investigate the effect of renewable energy consumption on sustainable development. Using provincial panel data from 2005 to 2020 and the province and year fixed effects model for an empirical study, we discover that renewable energy consumption has a favorable impact on sustainable development. Similarly, the findings suggest the influence of non-renewable energy consumption on sustainable development is weaker than that of renewable energy consumption. Moreover, the heterogeneity of the influence of renewable energy consumption and nonrenewable energy consumption on sustainable development in eastern, central, and western China has been demonstrated as well. Notably, the two-stage least squares approach and generalized system method of moments are utilized to examine the robustness of this issue, and the reliability and robustness of the conclusions presented in this study are also confirmed. To sum up, the results in this article provide more evidence that the use of energy is an important contributor to achieving sustainable development in China and realizing the target set for sustainable development in 2030. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mitigating haze pollution is of practical significance to the green economy, and the development of digital finance may help achieve this goal. However, the effect of digital finance on haze pollution has not been systematically explained. Based on Chinese prefectural panel data for the 2011–2016 period, this study on haze concentration, technological innovation, and digital inclusive finance index as the dependent variable, mediating variable, and the core independent variable, respectively, investigated whether digital finance has improved haze pollution control in China using fixed effect (FE) and random effect (RE) models, a mediating effect model, a threshold panel model, and a dynamic spatial Durbin model (SDM). Four key results were obtained. (1) Digital finance significantly decreased haze pollution. After accounting for potential endogeneity, this conclusion was still valid. (2) The analysis of the influencing mechanism showed that digital finance was conducive to haze reduction by promoting regional innovation capabilities. (3) There was a nonlinear relationship between the influence of digital finance and haze pollution. Specifically, the impact of digital finance on haze pollution has gradually increased with the improvement of regional innovation capabilities. (4) Haze pollution displayed a significant positive spatial agglomeration in China. Digital finance can alleviate local haze pollution but will aggravate haze pollution in adjacent areas. Based on the results of this study, some pertinent policy suggestions were proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Standardization in energy-saving and emission-reduction measures has become increasingly important. The impact of standardization on carbon-emission efficiency in China was explored by using panel data from 2002 to 2017. The results showed that standardization significantly improved China's carbon-emission efficiency, which remained robust after a series of tests. Furthermore, the development of industry standards had a greater effect on the improvement of carbon-emission efficiency in the economically developed coastal areas, while the development of national standards significantly promoted the improvement of carbon-emission efficiency in the inland areas. An assessment of the impact mechanism demonstrated that standardization affects carbon-emission efficiency through technological progress, industrial modernization, and economies of scale. We compared our findings with the existing literature regarding the governance of a low-carbon economy; we also considered the subsequent policy implications of our findings in terms of sustainable economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the background of China's "carbon neutral" policy and the booming digitalization, how does environmental regulation affect green economy performance? The existing literature has studied the impact of energy consumption on green economic performance. However, the literature has ignored the impact of carbon dioxide emissions on China's green economy performance. In this regard, this research uses the non-radial distance function (NDDF) to calculate the green economic performance of China's prefecture-level cities, and uses the dynamic panel threshold model and the systematic GMM method to study the nonlinear impacts and mechanisms of environmental regulation, digital development, technological innovation, and industrial structure upgrade on green economic performance. The panel data set contains 228 Chinese cities from 2003 to 2019. The following findings are established: first, after adding carbon dioxide emissions to China's green economy performance, the environmental performance was reduced, and the green economy performance was also reduced. Second, the impact of environmental regulations on green economic performance has a double-threshold effect, with threshold values of −0.267 and 3.602, and this double-threshold effect has temporal and regional heterogeneity. Third, environmental regulations of different intensities have a single-threshold effect between digital development, technological innovation, and industrial structure upgrade, with threshold values of 2.955, 3.957, and 2.249, respectively. Fourth, digital development, technological innovation, and industrial structure upgrade promote green economic performance. Fifth, environmental regulation acts on green economic performance through the transmission of digitalization, technological innovation, and industrial structure upgrade. Based on these empirical findings, this research suggests that Chinese local governments should appropriately increase the intensity of environmental regulations, strengthen the digital application and technological innovation, and promote the upgrading of industrial structure to achieve the improvement of urban green economic performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]