How does digitalization affect regional carbon emission efficiency? The role of carbon emission network

The new quality productive forces is an advanced force committed to high-quality development and a significant driving force in achieving the "double carbon goal." To explore the impact of the new quality productive forces on carbon emissions in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region and enhance the positive effects of region's new quality productive forces on carbon emission levels and efficiency， this study aims to promote high-quality development in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region. Initially， based on urban panel data from the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region from 2007-2022， in accordance with the industrial structure and current policies of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region， a comprehensive evaluation method is utilized to calculate the index of new quality productive forces in the region， and the data envelopment analysis method is employed to measure the carbon emission efficiency. The development patterns and correlations between these two indices are analyzed across both temporal and spatial dimensions. Subsequently， an econometrics model is applied to examine the impact of new quality productive forces on carbon emissions and emission efficiency， and a mediation effect model is established to assess the mechanisms by which new quality productive forces affect carbon emissions through industrial structure and enhance carbon emission efficiency through technological innovation. The study produced several interesting results： ① The new quality productive forces can significantly reduce carbon emissions and improve carbon emission efficiency in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region， with results remaining robust after a series of tests， including winsorization test， alteration of control variables， and changes in estimation methods. ② After passing the mediation effect test， it is realized that new quality productive forces can influence carbon emissions through the regional industrial structure and enhance carbon emission efficiency by elevating the level of scientific and technological innovation. ③ Classifying cities in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region into resource-based cities and low-carbon pilot cities and conducting stratified regression analyses shows that the impact of new quality productive forces on carbon emissions and emission efficiency exhibits significant heterogeneity among different types of cities， providing crucial references for differentiated governance in the region. Based on the conclusions above， the study proposes recommendations from three aspects： constructing a coordinated development pattern of carbon emission reduction and efficiency， promoting the governance process of carbon emission reduction with the new quality productive forces， and developing and governing methods tailored to local conditions. These suggestions can provide new research perspectives and practical guidance for China to achieve the "double carbon goal."

Spatiotemporal analysis of carbon emission efficiency across economic development stages and synergistic emission reduction in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.

Carbon emissions have become a global challenge that threatens human development. Governments have taken various measures to reduce carbon emissions, and green finance is an important and innovative way to realize carbon emission reductions. This paper uses data on a prefecture-level city in China to explore the impact of green finance on carbon emission intensity from both theoretical and empirical perspectives, and analyzes the mechanisms by which green finance affects carbon emission intensity. On this basis, this paper further analyzes the impact of green finance on carbon emission efficiency. In addition, this paper introduces variables related to the digital economy to perform a comprehensive examination of the moderating effect of digital economy development on the relationship between green finance and both carbon emission intensity and efficiency. The results indicate that green finance reduces carbon emission intensity and that green innovation, green total factor productivity and the transformation and upgrading of industry are important mediating mechanisms. Meanwhile, analysis shows that green finance improves carbon emission efficiency. This paper also finds that the digital economy significantly enhances the role of green finance in reducing carbon emission intensity and promoting carbon emission efficiency, and makes a positive contribution to promoting carbon emission reduction. The findings will contribute to strengthening the government’s capacity for environmental protection, developing green finance, and reducing carbon emissions.

The improvement of carbon emission efficiency is guided by high-quality economic development, and the organic integration of ecology and economy is an important goal of putting sustainable economic development into action. Based on China's provincial panel data from 2008 to 2019, this article constructs a digital economy development index from the perspective of the digital economy and analyzes its impacts on carbon emission efficiency. The conclusion is that the development of the digital economy has significantly improved carbon emission efficiency. Through the analysis of the spatial spillover effect, it is found that regional carbon emission efficiency has a spatial correlation, but the development of the digital economy has no significant impact on the carbon emission efficiency of neighboring regions. Industrial structure adjustment, the energy structure, and technological progress are further analyzed as three mechanisms affecting carbon emission efficiency. It is found that the quality of industrial structure adjustment significantly promotes the improvement of carbon emission efficiency, while the energy structure significantly inhibits its improvement, and the range of industrial structure adjustment and technological progress have no significant impact on carbon emission efficiency. Based on the threshold effect, carbon emission efficiency be promoted only when the energy structure is in the interval unit (0.1288, 0.2441) and technological progress is >1.0591. Based on the above conclusion, we put forward corresponding policy suggestions.

Impact of environmental regulations on carbon emissions of transportation infrastructure: China’s evidence

Carbon emissions have risen in line with China's economic expansion. The key to sustainable development is finding a way to strike a balance between economic expansion and environmental protection, so improving carbon emission efficiency is vital. This paper uses provincial data from 2010 to 2020 to account for total carbon emissions using the emission factor method and obtains carbon emission efficiency data on this basis. A dynamic spatial Durbin model is then used to empirically test the possible influencing factors. The results show that, firstly, the growth rate of total carbon emissions is generally in line with the growth rate of GDP, indicating that there is no 'decoupling' in the economic system. Second, regional carbon emissions and carbon emission efficiency are not necessarily related. Thirdly, there is a clear spatial effect on carbon emission efficiency. The eastern region has the highest carbon emission efficiency, the western region has the lowest, and the northeastern and central regions have little difference in carbon emission efficiency. Further spatial and temporal migration analysis reveals that five provinces have made the migration between 2010 and 2020. Fourthly, in the short term, the direct and indirect effects of the factors affecting carbon emission efficiency are insignificant, but in the long term, most of the factors have significant direct and indirect effects on carbon emission efficiency. Finally, based on the above research findings, this paper makes policy recommendations.

Carbon emission efficiency of China’s industry sectors: From the perspective of embodied carbon emissions

China faces the key issue of improving the efficiency of carbon emissions, in its endeavor of building a low-carbon economy and reducing carbon emissions. This paper adopts the super-slack-based measure (SBM) model with a bad output to measure the carbon emission efficiency of each Chinese province from 2000 to 2019, and further uses the Tobit model to analyze the impact of environmental regulation, technological progress, and the interaction between the two on carbon emission efficiency. The results show that: China's carbon emission efficiency presents a large inter-provincial difference. Only a few provinces like Shanghai and Beijing reached the efficient frontier, while all the other provinces failed to do so. Overall, most Chinese provinces have a huge potential for improving carbon emission efficiency. By dividing China into three regions, it could be seen that the eastern region had the highest carbon emission efficiency, followed in turn by the central region and the western region. According to the spatiotemporal variation of carbon emission efficiency, most provinces with a high carbon emission efficiency belong to the economically developed eastern region, while most central and western provinces did not realize satisfactory carbon emission efficiency. With the elapse of time, the carbon emission efficiency in most provinces declined to varied degrees, while that of a few provinces was on the rise. The results of the Tobit model show that both environmental regulation and technological progress both significantly promoted carbon emission efficiency, but their cross term clearly suppressed carbon emission efficiency. When it comes to the control variables, carbon emission efficiency has a significantly positive relationship with opening-up, and a significantly negative relationship with industrial structure, financial development, energy structure, and urbanization level.

The excessive carbon emissions not only intensify the global climate change, but also seriously restrict the sustainable development of social economy. However, improving industrial carbon emissions efficiency is the most directly effective way to reduce emissions. Therefore, accurate measurement and analysis of carbon emissions efficiency and evolution characteristics of China’s industrial system is the basis for China to improve carbon emissions efficiency. Based on this, we adopted energy consumption method and input-output method to calculate and analyze the industrial carbon emissions efficiency and evolution characteristics of China from 2002 to 2015. The results show that (1) If carbon emissions from cement production are ignored and only energy-related carbon emissions are considered, the calculation results of carbon emissions efficiency of heavy industry will be overestimated about 30%. (2) Compared with 2002, China’s industrial carbon emissions efficiency increased by about twice in 2015. Specifically, the optimization of carbon emissions efficiency in agriculture, construction, light industry and service industry is very obvious, which has increased by 5.65, 5.00, 4.69 and 4.68 times respectively; The optimization of carbon emissions efficiency in power sector, heavy industry, transportation and chemical industry was obvious, which increased by 2.55, 2.01, 1.86 and 1.47 times respectively; The carbon emissions efficiency of the fossil energy sector has decreased by 0.36 times. (3) The carbon emissions efficiency of various industries has significant differences. Among them, agriculture, service industry, light industry and construction industry are generally industries with higher carbon emissions efficiency, while power sector, fossil energy sector, transportation industry, chemical industry and heavy industry are generally industries with lower carbon emissions efficiency, especially power and fossil energy sectors. Based on these, this paper provides policy implications and scientific evidence for accurately improving carbon emissions efficiency from the perspective of carbon emissions efficiency.

Jiangsu Province is not only a large province in terms of carbon emissions but also a pioneer in pursuing the goal of carbon neutrality. Improving carbon emission efficiency (CEE) is the key to lowering carbon emissions. Therefore, exploring CEE is of significance for balancing economic growth and successfully cutting carbon emissions. Based on the measurement of CEE in Jiangsu Province from 2008 to 2020, this paper explores its spatiotemporal pattern and influencing factors to propose corresponding policies. The results are as follows. (1) From 2008 to 2020, the CEE of Jiangsu Province exhibited a fluctuating increase, reaching 0.894 in 2020. The temporal variation trend of CEE in each region is consistent, whereas CEE in southern Jiangsu is greater. (2) The regional differences in CEE are evident. The low-high (LH) agglomeration region is mainly in northern Jiangsu, whereas the high-low (HL) agglomeration area is mainly in southern Jiangsu. (3) Technological progress is the primary way to raise CEE in Jiangsu Province, and the contribution of technical efficiency is relatively small. (4) The primary factors that promote CEE are economic growth and green technology progress, but environmental protection has an adverse effect. Therefore, all cities in Jiangsu Province should formulate carbon emission reduction policies that are in line with their development and provide a successful reference for regional green and low-carbon development and global climate governance.

With the introduction of national carbon neutrality targets, carbon emission reduction actions in developed countries have become a hot topic as part of the international community's drive to take action to mitigate climate change. Carbon emission efficiency is an important indicator that can be used to measure progress toward carbon emission reduction targets. The relationship between green technology innovation and carbon emission efficiency has not been adequately studied, and the transmission mechanism is not yet clear. Based on the above research gaps, taking 32 developed countries that have proposed carbon neutral targets as research samples, this paper used spatial econometric models to explore the impact of green technology innovation on carbon emission efficiency and adopted spatial mediation model and spatial moderation model to analyze the transmission effects of economic development, urbanization, and financial development on environment-related green technology and carbon emission efficiency. This paper aimed to provide a policy basis for developed countries to mitigate carbon emissions and achieve carbon neutrality goals as soon as possible. The following results were obtained: (1) Luxembourg, Norway, and Switzerland were found to be efficient in terms of carbon emissions, while most developed countries were in an inefficient state. (2) Environment-related green technology innovation significantly improved carbon emission efficiency. (3) Economic development and urbanization had a mediating role on green technology innovation and carbon emission efficiency. In other words, green technology innovation could have an indirect impact on carbon emission efficiency by influencing economic development and urbanization. (4) Financial development could positively moderate the sensitivity of carbon emission efficiency to green technology innovation. Improving the level of green technology innovation is one way to improve carbon emission efficiency, and the mediating effect of economic development and urbanization can be used as a focus point to improve carbon emission efficiency. The pressure of carbon emission reduction can be moderated by finance development. The results of this study provide theoretical support that will assist developed countries in achieving their carbon neutrality targets.

The enhancement of carbon emission efficiency is a crucial pathway for achieving the "dual carbon" goals， which relies on the in-depth participation of new quality productivity （NQP）. Based on provincial panel data from 2011 to 2022， this study empirically examined the impact， mechanisms， and effects of NQP on carbon emission efficiency， using the two-way fixed effects model， mediation effects model， panel threshold model， and quantile regression model. The findings indicated that： ① NQP significantly improved carbon emission efficiency. ② Mechanism analysis revealed that NQP enhanced carbon emission efficiency by facilitating the aggregation of innovative talent and innovative capital. ③ Threshold effect analysis showed that the influence of NQP on carbon emission efficiency exhibited significant threshold characteristics. When the government's emphasis on science and technology and the local market scale exceeded certain thresholds， the effect on improving carbon emission efficiency became more pronounced. ④ Heterogeneity analysis indicated that the effect of NQP on enhancing carbon emission efficiency was more pronounced in regions with substantial investment in regions with higher levels of government environmental emphasis and digital infrastructure. ⑤ Further analysis suggested that the influence of NQP on carbon emission efficiency also exhibited a notable catching-up effect， which helps narrow the regional disparities in carbon emission efficiency. These conclusions provide a new theoretical perspective and clearer policy guidance for promoting the green low-carbon transformation of economic development models.

Under the global imperative for energy conservation and emission reduction, a critical yet underexplored question is how environmental regulation (ER) specifically affects carbon emission efficiency (CEE). In this paper, the Super-Slacks-Based Measure (SBM) model with undesirable outputs is used to measure the CEE of 30 Chinese provinces from 2010 to 2022. Based on the results, the Tobit model is used to study the impact of ER on CEE empirically. The results show that (1) China’s CEE is low, and the eastern region has the highest CEE, followed by the central and northeastern regions, and the lowest is the western region. (2) There is a U-shaped curve relationship between ER and CEE, namely, the impacts of ER on CEE are first inhibitory and then promotive; Currently, ER is having a negative effect on CEE, and the inflection point has yet to emerge. (3) Opening up level and population density have positive influences on CEE, while industrial structure exerts a negative impact. This research provides a reference for improving the CEEs of China and other developing countries. Policy implications include the need to strengthen and optimise the regulations to promote the high-quality development of the Chinese economy. The results offer a reference for policymakers.

Spatiotemporal differentiation of carbon emission efficiency and influencing factors: From the perspective of 136 countries

The rational use of environmental regulation tools has become an important means by which to improve the efficiency of carbon emissions. Different types of environmental regulations and their combinations have different impacts on carbon emission efficiency. In order to determine the environmental regulation configurations that may achieve high carbon emission efficiency or lead to low carbon emission efficiency, we constructed an analytical framework of connections between environmental regulation configurations and carbon emission efficiency. Moreover, 30 Chinese provinces from the period covering 2016 to 2019 were selected as research cases. In addition, the super slacks-based measure of efficiency (SE-SBM) model was applied to evaluate carbon emission efficiency. Finally, the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) method was employed to analyze the impact of different environmental regulation configurations on carbon emission efficiency. The results showed that the carbon emission efficiency of various regions of China is generally low (with most regions not having reached an effective level) and that there are large regional differences. We found that there are four environmental regulation configurations that can achieve high carbon emission efficiency and two environmental regulation configurations that lead to low carbon emission efficiency. Based on these configurations, we draw three conclusions: (1) There are three paths to achieving high carbon emission efficiency: one that values command-and-control environmental regulation but disfavors market-incentive environmental regulation, another that combines command-and-control environmental regulation with market-incentive environmental regulation, and a third that couples command-and-control environmental regulation with voluntary environmental regulation. (2) Two paths that may lead to low carbon emission efficiency were established: excessive penalties and the lack of specific measures. (3) In some conditions, environmental governance investment and fiscal expenditure could be substituted for each other; environmental protection administrative penalties and pollution charges are synchronized; environmental governance investment in the promotion of carbon emission efficiency is indispensable. Policies and suggestions on how the government can use environmental regulation tools to improve carbon emission efficiency are proposed from a general coordinative perspective in the final section of this paper.