The impact of carbon-biased technological progress on carbon haze coordinated governance: insights from China.

Abstract

Superficial or cosmetic measures are unlikely to solve the complex challenges of carbon haze governance. Carbon-biased technological progress plays a significant role in low-carbon technology and economic sustainable development. This study introduces carbon resources as a production factor in the transcendental logarithmic function to calculate the biased technological progress index of 30 provinces in China between 2010 and 2020. Subsequently, this study constructs the spatial Durbin model to empirically investigate the spatial spillover effect of carbon-biased technology progress on carbon haze coordinated governance. The findings reveal that China's technological progress is primarily characterized by carbon bias, particularly in terms of labor-using carbon-saving technological progress and capital-using carbon-saving technological progress. Additionally, both levels of carbon haze coordinated governance and carbon-biased technological progress have significant spatial agglomeration characteristics. Moreover, the carbon-biased technological progress can facilitate synergy degree of carbon haze governance through energy-saving effects but can also hinder the carbon haze coordinated governance through rebound effects. Therefore, it is imperative to improve labor productivity, augment green capital investment, and stimulate the induction of technological progress towards carbon saving to achieve sustainable and high-quality economic development. The primary contribution is identifying the uncertainty surrounding the impact of carbon-biased technological progress on coordinated governance of carbon haze, while also providing theoretical explanations for the influence channels of carbon-biased technological progress.