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Digital development is critical for achieving coordinated regional economic growth, energy conservation, and emissions reduction, which makes it a viable method for achieving carbon neutrality and peaks. This study investigates the impact of the digital economy on urban total factor productivity and carbon emissions, as well as its mechanism, from 2011 to 2019 by developing a digital economy evaluation index system. We find that the growth of the digital economy can increase urban total factor productivity while lowering carbon emissions and also has a significant spatial spillover effect on regional economic growth, energy conservation, and emissions reduction. The main influencing mechanism is that the digital economy accelerates marketization by encouraging industrial structure upgrades and technological progress, which results in higher total factor productivity and lower energy consumption. In terms of the spatial distribution, the digital economy promotes total factor productivity more in the central and western regions and large cities and promotes carbon emission reduction less in the eastern regions and smaller cities. The findings extend the benefits of the digital economy beyond economic and social welfare benefits and serve as a model for achieving a win–win situation in terms of both economic growth and carbon emissions reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ensuring the coordinated development of carbon emissions and green economy has important implications for China's sustainable development. For examining the coordinated development between carbon emissions and green economy in China and its influencing factors, this study assessed the coupling coordination degree (CCD) between carbon emission intensity (CEI) and green total factor productivity (GTFP) using the coupling coordination degree model (CCDM), revealed the spatiotemporal evolution law of CCD using a spatial correlation model and empirically examined their influencing factors using the spatial Durbin model (SDM) to test influencing factors. The following findings were made: (1) The green economy in China synchronously developed with carbon emission reductions from 2000 to 2020. (2) CCD has global spatial concentration effects, and the objects are divided into three categories: cold spots, hot spots, and random distributions. (3) Government scale expansion, transportation volume increase, industrial agglomeration, and urbanization are all not conducive to CCD, but population density and industrial structure upgrading have opposite effects. To promote the coordinated development of carbon emissions and green economy, we can improve the efficiency of energy utilization and reduce carbon emissions, by using clean energy, adopting clean production technology, increasing non-productive public investment in environmental protection, industrial agglomeration in reasonable space, and improving the moderate population agglomeration. Our findings offer valuable insight for understanding the relationship between carbon emission reduction and green economic development. They will allow authorities to take specific actions to ensure the coordinated development of CEI and GTFP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]