Navigating the green future: Unraveling the role of fintech, decentralization, natural resources, and monetary policy uncertainty in China

Abstract

Improving environmental integrity is a crucial policy agenda in achieving sustainable development goals, and reliable carbon emission measure is imperative in devising an effective climate strategy. Increasing climate susceptibility instigates us to explore the factors of ecological sustainability. Therefore, we scrutinize the dynamic influence of monetary policy uncertainty, mineral resources dependency, Fintech, fiscal decentralization, and trade on consumption-based carbon emissions (CCE) in China using the quarterly data from Q1-2005 to Q4-2021. For estimation, the study employed the bootstrap autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) method, and the overall findings exhibit that fiscal decentralization significantly decreases the CCE, while monetary policy uncertainty, Fintech, and natural resources dependency increase CCE. Imports are responsible for higher CCE, while exports report the opposite. Consistent findings are endorsed by the short-run estimates with lower magnitude, and the error correction term significantly adjusts towards the steady state equilibrium with 61.0% quarterly adjustment in case of any deviation from stready state equilibrium. The results also confirm a bi-directional causality among all variables except Fintech, policy uncertainty, and CCE. This study offers relevant policy recommendations.