The impact of financial inclusion and natural resource endowment on China's carbon emissions in the post-covid-19 period

Abstract

After the novel coronavirus pneumonia pandemic, how to control the pandemic and restore the economy to the pre-pandemic level as soon as possible to promote resilience and sustainable development has become one of the most important policy decision issues of global concern, Green development, with low-carbon economic development as its core essence, is an important way to achieve high-quality economic development in the Post-Covid-19 period. The paper selects 30 regions in China from 2006 to 2022 and empirically examines the effects of financial inclusion and natural resource endowment on regional carbon emission (CE), and draws the following conclusions. (1) Resource endowment can increase carbon emission in the national and central regions, verifying the existence of the “resource curse effect” on carbon emission intensity, but not exist in the eastern region. In the western region, resource endowment has a positive but insignificant relationship with carbon emission intensity. Financial inclusion development suppresses CE, but not significant and financial inclusion promotes the decrease of carbon emission in east. While the central region has a relatively small impact on the positive effect of CE; the western region has an insignificant effect. (2) The level of urbanization promotes CE at the national and eastern levels, while not significant in the central and a negative effect in the west. GDP per capita can increase CE in all regions, but the western region has the largest elasticity. Industrial structure has a positive effect on CE nationwide and in all regions, with the smallest effect on CE in the eastern region; there is a positive correlation between energy intensity and CE in all regions. The research provides important references for different regions in China to realize low-carbon development.