Green Technological Progress Research Articles

Influence of Climate Change on Carbon Emissions during Grain Production and Its Mechanism

Abnormal climatic changes and related disasters are increasing in prevalence, with many negative impacts on ecosystems and agricultural production. The area of land in China is vast, including diverse terrain and climate types, and a substantial area is used to grow food crops. Therefore, climate change is having a huge impact on China’s grain production. Currently, the relationship between climate change and carbon emissions during grain production and the underlying mechanism have not been fully clarified. Therefore, this study used an ordinary least squares regression (OLS) model and the system generalized method of moments (SYS-GMM) to examine the influence of climatic change and carbon emissions during grain production, and we constructed mediation effect models to explore the mechanism of influence between them by utilizing panel data in China from 2000 to 2020. In addition, we also examined the adjustment effect of green technology progress and farmland scale. The study found that China’s carbon emissions during grain production increased from 2000 to 2015 and then presented a decreasing trend after 2015. We found that the annual average temperature has a prominent positive effect on carbon emissions during grain production, while the annual average rainfall has a negative effect. Among them, temperature changes mainly lead to the increase in carbon emissions during grain production through the increase in “fertilizer use” and “multiple cropping index”, but the mechanism of rainfall changes’ impact on carbon emissions during grain production is still unclear. In addition, green technology progress and farmland scale play adjustment roles in the impact of climate change on carbon emissions during grain production, and they could significantly suppress carbon emissions. On the basis of the conclusions in this paper, we propose that strengthening climate change adaptation is an important prerequisite for reducing carbon emissions during grain production. Furthermore, China should continue to reduce fertilizer use, facilitate the application of agriculture green technology, and expand the scale of farmland to achieve agricultural carbon emission reduction.

Spatiotemporal Variations and Convergence Characteristics of Green Technological Progress in China’s Mariculture

The sustainability of mariculture depends on adopting green technologies, which can mitigate the negative impacts on the environment and ensure long-term viability. However, existing studies do not comprehensively understand the characteristics and regional differences of green technology progress (GTP) in mariculture. According to data from ten coastal regions from 2008 to 2020, this study adopts the Epsilon-Based Measure (EBM)-Malmquist model to measure the GTP of mariculture, uses the Dagum Gini coefficient to analyze the spatial differences of GTP, and uses convergence models to explore the convergence of GTP. The results showed that: (1) the GTP of China’s mariculture showed a fluctuating upward trend temporally and significant spatial differences. The overall differences showed a dispersion trend over time. The contributions of inter-regional super variable net value difference (Gnb), inter-regional transvariation intensity (Gt), and intra-regional difference (Gw) were 38.813%, 31.256%, and 29.931%, respectively. (2) The degree of dispersion of GTP among different regions has not decreased with time, which means there is no apparent σ convergence. Absolute β convergence and conditional β convergence existed in GTP, and the absolute value of the latter was greater than that of the former. That is, the growth rate of GTP will first reach their respective steady-state levels and then approach a unified steady-state equilibrium level.

Regional differentiation in influencing factors of clean renewable energy consumption from the perspective of air pollution prevention and control

Global economic growth is now increasingly conflicting with the sustainable development strategy. In the context of ecological environmental preservation and air pollution prevention and control, this paper probes into the regional differentiation in the influencing factors of clean renewable energy consumption. First and foremost, a brief analysis of the status quo of clean renewable consumption in China was outputted, grounded on data on the input and output of 30 provinces and cities nationwide from 2010 to 2020. Then, national and regional models are built respectively in virtue of differential GMM, systematic GMM, and bias-corrected LSDV methods. Furthermore, efforts were invested in dissecting the working mechanism of the influencing factors and verifying the previous prediction resulting in applying the Tobit regression method. For every 1% increase in the green finance index, the clean renewable energy consumption rises by 0.882 accordingly, said the regression analysis results. Last but not least, it was concluded that the development level of green finance, internet advance, and technological progress significantly positively affected clean renewable energy consumption. While the industrial structure, the degree of openness, and the level of urbanization represented by the proportion of the secondary industry play hardly-seen impact.

The environmental and economic utility of the third-party governance of environmental pollution in China—an analysis based on the business registration information of enterprises

The third-party governance of environmental pollution (TEG) is a market-oriented mechanism designed to attract social capital to participate in ecological environmental protection. Can this mechanism result in positive and significant environmental and economic effects in developing countries? This paper examines the practical effectiveness of China’s pollution governance system reform by analyzing data on the registered business capital of the environmental protection industry in 285 prefecture-level cities during the period of 2003–2019. The study finds the following: TEG can effectively curb urban pollution emissions and improve the urban green total factor productivity (GTFP) of cities; heterogeneity analysis shows that specialization, marketization, and enterprise nature exert important impacts on its effectiveness; mechanism analysis shows that TEG can restrain pollution emissions by strengthening the tendency toward urban green technology progress; and its effects of releasing the industrial production capacity can be leveraged to improve the quality of economic development.

Measurement of Urban Green Total Factor Productivity and Analysis of Its Temporal and Spatial Evolution in China

This paper uses the Super SBM-DEA model and GML index method with undesirable output indicators to measure GTFP in 288 cities in China. Furthermore, we divide Chinese land into east, central, west, and northeast parts, and analyze their temporal and spatial evolution trends. It is shown that, firstly, China’s overall GTFP shows an upward fluctuating trend, in which green technical efficiency contributes more to the improvement of GTFP in Chinese cities, while green technological progress contributes less. Secondly, the urban GTFP in the eastern, central, western, and northeastern regions shows obvious differences, with the source of GTFP growth in the eastern region being mainly green technological progress, the source of growth in the central region being green efficiency improvement in the early stage and green technological progress in the later stage, while the source of growth in the western and northeastern regions is green efficiency improvement. Finally, combined with spatial distribution characteristic maps and kernel density estimation, GTFP shows spatial disequilibrium characteristics in China.

Impact of Green Credit Policy on the sustainable growth of pollution-intensive industries: Evidence from China

Based on the dataset of Chinese A-share market firms between 2004 and 2019 and the implementation of the Green Credit Guidelines, this study explores the impact of green credit policy (GCP) on the sustainable development of pollution-intensive enterprises (PIEs) in terms of their financing, growth, green technology progress, and environment protection. Using a Difference-in-Difference model, the empirical analysis reveals that GCP inhibits PIEs’ financing and investment, and reduces employment opportunities. It hinders PIEs’ green innovation, but does not reduce their investment in green technology projects. Though it does not encourage investment in environment protection, it drives PIEs to discharge fewer types of pollutants. The effect of GCP on PIEs’ growth and green technology progress is similar across various enterprises. However, state-owned enterprises, large firms and those located in the eastern region are more likely to discharge fewer types of pollutants with the implementation of GCP. This study suggests that green finance has some limitations when promoting the sustainable development of pollution intensive industries. It is necessary to accelerate the development of transition finance to support the green transformation of PIEs, and prevent potential economic and social risks such as job losses due to the shrinkage of PIEs.

National innovative city and green technology progress: empirical evidence from China.

In this paper, a quasi-natural experiment of national innovative city pilot policy (NICPP) is carried out to investigate the impact of the NICPP on green technology innovation (GTI) and its intrinsic mechanism with the method of difference-in-differences. It is found that the NICPP significantly enhances GTI, and there is a certain lag and persistence in this effect. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the higher the administrative level and the more the geographical advantages of NICPP, the more obvious the driving effect of GTI. The mechanism test shows that the NICPP has an effect on the GTI through three channels: innovation factor input, agglomeration effect of science and technology talent, and entrepreneurial vitality empowerment. The findings of this study provide policy insights for further optimizing the construction of innovative cities and then promoting GTI development, ultimately realizing green dynamics transformation and high-quality development of China's economy.

Does new-type urbanization policy promote green energy efficiency? Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in China

Although economy-centered urbanization has been favored by many developing countries, it has brought about serious economic and social challenges while creating an economic miracle. To achieve sustainable development and address the issue of excessive energy consumption caused by traditional urbanization, China began to implement the new-type people-centered urbanization policy since 2014. This paper is the first to theoretically analyze the mechanism and impact of new-type urbanization policy (NUP) on green energy efficiency (GEE). By using the panel data of 285 Chinese cities during 2003–2017, after measuring GEE considering environmental constraints, this paper examines the impact and its mechanism of NUP on GEE. The results show that in comparison to non-pilot cities, the implementation of NUP could prevent GEE from improving, and lower GEE by 0.060 on average. After a series of tests, the main conclusion remains robust. Mechanism analysis indicates that NUP can affect GEE through green technical efficiency and green technological progress. Heterogeneity analysis suggests that under the constraints of different urban industries, resource endowment, city size, economic development stage, and urban administrative level, NUP has diverse impacts on GEE. Corresponding policy implications are proposed accordingly to improve GEE.

Green technological progress, agricultural modernization, and wage inequality: Lessons from China

AbstractGreen technological progress (GTP) is crucial for environmental protection and economic growth in China. Over the past decades, China made huge GTP which exerts a far‐reaching consequence on economic and social development. However, a paucity of research investigates the distributional effect of GTP. Meanwhile, we incorporate agricultural producer service sector into a three‐sector general equilibrium model to reflect the modernization of small‐scale agriculture. The agricultural producer service sector that acts as an intermediate sector can facilitate the utilization of intermediate inputs indirectly. To desalinate this process, a two‐layer vertical production structure is established: parts of manufacturing goods are utilized by the service sector, outputs of which are intermediate inputs that could substitute labor in agriculture. Theoretical analysis shows that GTP increases both wage of skilled labor and unskilled labor. Nevertheless, GTP generates a greater impact on the wage of skilled labor than unskilled labor, leading to widening income disparity. Then, we examine the impact of GTP on wage inequality using a balanced panel data covering 30 provincial units in China during 2000–2019. In line with our theoretical conjecture, we find strong supportive evidences that GTP significantly widens the wage inequality.

Environmental regulation and agricultural green productivity growth in China: A retest based on ‘Porter Hypothesis’

ABSTRACT Based on the panel data of provincial units in China from 2000 to 2020, this paper uses the entropy method to calculate agricultural environmental regulation level in China from the perspectives of afforestation projects, water conservancy projects and environmental protection projects. Then, this paper calculates agricultural non-point source pollutant emissions in China by using the unit survey and evaluation method, and calculates agricultural green productivity growth in China by using the SBM directional distance function and Luenberger productivity index. On this basis, the influence of environmental regulation on agricultural green productivity growth in China and its mechanism are empirically analysed. The results show that:(1) During the sample period, agricultural environmental regulation level and agricultural green productivity growth increased significantly, while the emission density of agricultural non-point source pollution decreased significantly; (2) On the whole, environmental regulation significantly promoted agricultural green productivity growth in China, which was mainly reflected in the promotion of agricultural green technology progress change; (3) Environmental regulation can significantly promote agricultural green productivity growth in China through the channel of agricultural innovation investment. The innovation of this paper lies in the measurement of agricultural environmental regulation, and the analysis of the moderating effect of agricultural innovation investment on the impact of environmental regulation on agricultural green productivity growth in China. The research conclusions of this paper verify the ‘Porter Hypothesis’ theory in the field of agriculture, and have guiding significance for China to promote agricultural green productivity growth by relying on environmental regulation.

Toward green growth in China: The role of green finance investment, technological capital, and renewable energy consumption.

In recent times, the concept of green growth has emerged, which has a critical part to play in controlling the environmental impact of economic activities. In this analysis, we have explored three determinants of green growth: green finance investment, technological capital, and renewable energy. Moreover, this study focuses on the asymmetric impact of green finance investment, technological progress, and renewable energy on green growth in China during the period spanning from 1996 to 2020. To get the asymmetric short and long-run estimates across various quantiles, we have employed the nonlinear QARDL. The long-run estimates attached to a positive shock in green finance investment, renewable energy demand, and technological capital are positively significant at most quantiles. While, the long-run estimates attached to a negative shock in green finance investment, technological capital, and renewable energy demand are insignificant at most quantiles. In general, the findings suggest that the rise in green financial investment, technological capital, and renewable energy demand positively impacts green growth in the long run. The study offers a range of significant policy recommendations that can contribute to the advancement of sustainable green growth in China.

Green Technological Progress Implications on Long-Run Sustainable Economic Growth

The main objective of this study is to model and examine the green technological progress’s positive and negative externalities spillover effects on the sustainable economic growth of 15 economies from Asia, the Pacific, and Latin America. The study calculated labour and capital contributions to green total factor productivity growth via the inclusion of CO2 emissions as undesirable output or private unpriced input and energy consumption that proxies for unmeasured pollutant emissions. The results, in most cases, confirm that a high level of air pollutant emissions generated by these countries’ economic development affected the growth rates of TFP growth as an indicator of green technological progress. The significant contribution of this study is to integrate innovation and climate change in the form of green productivity (green technological progress). The role of these externalities on long-term sustainable economic growth has been ignored by several past studies undertaken in these areas.

Green Efficiency Measurement of Seaweed Culture in China under the Double Carbon Target

Seaweed culture is of great significance in giving full play to the function of marine carbon sequestration and strengthening the protection and repair of the marine ecosystem. Its green efficiency measurement can provide China with a means for a global low-carbon economy. From the ecological perspective of net carbon sink, this paper selects three indexes: input, expected output and unexpected output. The total carbon sink and carbon emissions are included in the evaluation index system of green efficiency of seaweed culture in China. The green efficiency of seaweed culture in China from 2008 to 2020 is calculated by the super-SBM model. Through the redundancy rate of input and output, the influencing factors of net carbon sink output of seaweed culture are put forward. According to the empirical calculation results and influencing factors of green efficiency, the countermeasures and suggestions for green seaweed culture in China under the dual-carbon target are put forward. The results showed that: (1) the net carbon sink and green efficiency level of seaweed culture in China showed an overall growth trend, and there was a lot of room for growth in economic and ecological benefits; (2) influenced by index factors and non-index factors such as marine resource economy and planning, there are differences in seaweed culture and green efficiency in the three major sea areas of China; (3) the indexes of green efficiency of seaweed culture in different study areas are different; and (4) the improvement of green efficiency can promote the Chinese seaweed culture industry. Green technology progress effect, structure effect, and input–output scale effect are the main influencing mechanisms of green efficiency of seaweed culture. It is suggested that in the future, we should optimize the structure of seaweed culture, innovate seaweed culture technology, improve carbon sink trading policy and strengthen the training of carbon sink talents. This will accelerate the realization of the goal of green and double carbon seaweed culture and promote the global low-carbon economy.

What causes dynamic change of green technology progress: Convergence analysis based on industrial restructuring and environmental regulation

Using 57 city-level panel data of Yellow River Economic Belt from 2004 to 2018, this paper investigates the effect of industrial restructuring and environmental regulation on dynamic change of green technology progress (GTP) by convergence models. Industrial restructuring is divided into rationalization and advancement industrial structure. Concretely,δconvergence results present that GTP values of different cities do not converge to steady state, but absoluteβconvergence results show that GTP growth rate of different cities will reach to a certain steady-level. In addition, the estimation results verify the existence of GTP conditionalβconvergence. Rationalization industrial structure, advancement industrial structure, and environmental regulation respectively have significantly positive effect on GTP, but the positive effects of rationalization and advancement industrial structure reduce with the increase of environmental regulation. Moreover, fiscal revenue decentralization and fiscal expenditure decentralization are important transmission channels through which industrial restructuring and environmental regulation affect GTP.

How does agricultural production agglomeration affect green total factor productivity?: empirical evidence from China

Economic growth in agriculture is often accompanied by environmental pollution. To overcome this dilemma, agricultural green total factor productivity is essential. The role of agricultural production agglomeration has been studied extensively; however, there is no apparent association between agricultural production agglomeration and agricultural green total factor productivity. We use the non-angular and non-radial super-efficiency slacks-based measure model and the global Malmquist-Luenberger productivity model to assess the agricultural green total factor productivity in 30 Chinese provinces from 2001 to 2019. In addition, we investigate the evolutionary trend, influence relationship, and internal mechanism between agricultural production agglomeration and agricultural green total factor productivity. The results show an inverted U-shaped relationship between agricultural production agglomeration and agricultural green total factor productivity. Heterogeneity analysis finds that this role is more pronounced in provinces located inthe Yangtze River economic zone with strong fiscal support for agriculture and high levels of regional economic development. Regarding the mechanism analysis, enhancing green technology progress and the quality of rural human capital leads to an increase in agricultural green total factor productivity. Therefore, this study provides a new perspective on global carbon emission reduction and a theoretical and practical reference for realizing global agricultural green development.

How can market-oriented environmental regulation improve urban energy efficiency? Evidence from quasi-experiment in China's SO2 trading emissions system

Improving energy efficiency helps achieve energy conservation and emission reduction. Examining whether China's SO2 trading emission system (TES) reform can enhance energy efficiency will provide empirical evidence for the institutional benefit of market-oriented environmental regulation in environmental governance. This paper employs the difference-in-differences (DID) method to examine the effect of SO2 TES on energy efficiency using panel data from 285 Chinese cities from 2003 to 2018. The empirical results indicate that: (1) SO2 TES significantly promoted green total factor energy efficiency and reduced energy intensity. This conclusion is still valid after the prerequisite assumption test and robustness test. (2) SO2 TES significantly promotes local energy efficiency and has significant spatial spillover effects on surrounding cities. (3) Promoting green technological progress, resource allocation, and curbing energy consumption, are the primary mechanisms for SO2 TES to improve energy efficiency. (4) SO2 TES's improvement in energy efficiency comes more from eastern, developed, small, resource-based, and non-old industrial cities.

Agri-Ecological Policy, Human Capital and Agricultural Green Technology Progress

Agri-ecological policy and human capital are important factors affecting agricultural green technology progress (AGTP), but the related research is relatively insufficient. This paper contributes to existing research through new insights on the effect of agri-ecological policy on AGTP, using human capital as a moderating variable. We use the Super-efficiency SBM-DEA model to measure AGTP in 30 provinces of China during 2000–2019, and use a two-way fixed effects model to analyze the nonlinear effect of agri-ecological policy on AGTP and the moderating role of human capital. The results show that there is a “U”-shaped relationship between agri-ecological policy and AGTP, where human capital plays a positive moderating role. Intermediate human capital and advanced human capital can significantly moderate the impact of agri-ecological policy on AGTP, while the moderating role of primary human capital is not significant. The “U”-shaped relationship between agri-ecological policy and AGTP involves some heterogeneity based on differences in grain function and the two sides of the Hu Huanyong line.

Spatial-temporal evolution and convergence analysis of agricultural green total factor productivity-evidence from the Yangtze River Delta Region of China.

Measuring regional differences in agricultural green total factor productivity (AGTFP) provides a basis for policy guidance on agricultural green development in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region. By constructing a two-period Malmquist-Luenberger index under the carbon emission constraint, we measure the AGTFP of cities in the YRD region from 2001 to 2019. Furthermore, adopting the Moran index method and the hot spot analysis method, this paper analyzes the global spatial correlation and local spatial correlation of AGTFP in this region. Moreover, we investigate its spatial convergence. The results show that the AGTFP of 41 cities in the YRD region is on an increasing trend; the growth of AGTFP in the eastern cities is mainly driven by green technical efficiency, while this growth in the southern cities is mainly stimulated by green technical efficiency and green technological progress. We also find a significant spatial correlation between cities' AGTFP in the YRD region from 2001 to 2019, but with certain fluctuations, showing a U-shaped trend of "strong-weak-strong". In addition, absolute β convergence of the AGTFP exists in the YRD region, and this convergence speed is accelerated with the addition of spatial factors. This evidence provides support for implementing the regional integration development strategy and optimizing the regional agricultural spatial layout. Our findings offer implications for promoting the transfer of green agricultural technology to the southwest of the YRD region, strengthening the construction of agricultural economic belts and agricultural economic circles, and improving the efficiency of agricultural resource use.

Analysis on the Growth and Convergence of Agricultural Green Total Factor Productivity in Guangxi

This paper uses DEA-SBM super-efficiency model and GML index to calculate the agricultural green total factor productivity (AGTFP) of Guangxi from 2014 to 2020, and analyzes the convergence of AGTFP and its influencing factors. The study finds that: First, Guangxi's AGTFP increased by 5.42% annually, mainly driven by the agricultural green technology progress; Second, the growth of AGTFP in different regions exists heterogeneous, and the growth rate of western Guangxi ranks first in Guangxi; Third, the AGTFP in Guangxi shows a state of first σ converges and then σ diverges, there is absolute β convergence in AGTFP in Guangxi, this phenomenon exist in northern Guangxi, central Guangxi, southern Guangxi and eastern Guangxi, but there is no absolute β Convergence in western Guangxi ; Fourth, agricultural structure inhibits AGTFP, while the level of fiscal support for agriculture promotes AGTFP.

Are Economic Growth Pressures Inhibiting Green Total Factor Productivity Growth?

The purpose of this study is to reveal the impact of economic-growth pressure on green total factor productivity (GTFP) to provide a reference for promoting green development in China. Based on the economic-growth objective-management perspective, this paper takes panel data of 249 cities in China from 2006 to 2019 as a sample, using the directional distance function and the Malmquist–Luenberger Productivity Index to measure GTFP, and then using the dual fixed-effect model to empirically analyze the impact and intrinsic mechanism of economic-growth pressure on GTFP. The results show that (1) economic-growth pressure significantly inhibits GTFP and has a significant inhibitory effect on both green-technology progress and green-technology efficiency. However, the marginal negative effect on green-technology progress is stronger. (2) The inhibition effect of economic-growth pressure on GTFP is characterized by heterogeneity of economic-growth-pressure intensity, economic-development degree, and marketization level. The greater the economic-growth-pressure intensity, the higher the economic-development degree, the lower the marketization level, and the stronger the inhibition effect of economic-growth pressure on GTFP, green-technology progress, and green-technology efficiency. (3) The pressure of economic growth significantly inhibits patent innovation of green inventions and hinders the improvement of green technological innovation, leading to stagnation or retreat of green technological progress and the obstruction of GTFP improvement. The research conclusion of this paper has certain theoretical and practical significance. Based on the findings of the study, suggestions on promoting green development via economic-growth targets are given in three aspects: reforming the promotion-assessment system of officials, rationalizing the setting of economic-growth targets, and green-invention–patent-innovation-driven development.