Abstract
The global climate crisis is exacerbated by the massive burning of fossil energy, represented by natural resource extraction and usage. Likewise, digital finance (DF) is critical to enable financial support for reducing natural resource consumption and supporting low-carbon development. Against this backdrop, this paper analyses DF's impact on carbon emissions under financial regulatory constraints using 274 Chinese cities data from 2011 to 2020. Results reveal that DF does not present a carbon mitigation effect but rather stimulates carbon emissions. The breadth of DF use mainly materializes the carbon emission effect of DF. Realizing the carbon reduction effect of DF depends on the moderating effect of financial regulatory constraints. DF has prominent universality characteristics under the constraints of financial regulation; such effect is more evident in resource-based cities, third- and fourth-tier cities, and central and western regions. The carbon reduction effect of DF under financial regulatory constraints is mainly achieved by stimulating green innovation, resource efficiency, and industrial structure upgrading.
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