The Impact Of The Development Of Digital Economy On Carbon Emissions At The Municipal Level In China

The dual-carbon target is an effective way to manage greenhouse gas emissions and continuously improve environmental quality,which is conducive to accelerating China’s energy transition and promoting high-quality development.2022 global energy-related carbon emissions reached more than 36.8 billion tons,up 0.9% year-on-year,and the global energy crisis is driving a wave of gas-coal switching,resulting in carbon emissions still facing greater pressure.The global energy crisis is driving a wave of gas-coal switching,resulting in carbon emissions still facing greater pressure.As the world’s largest carbon emitter,China proposed in2020 to strive to achieve carbon peak by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060,which is not only of great practical significance for China’s active participation in global environmental governance and the realization of regional low-carbon transformation,but also poses certain challenges to the adjustment of the energy structure,the promotion of the transformation of the industrial structure,the enhancement of energy efficiency and the acceleration of the research and development of low-carbon technologies.China’s economic development is facing the double pressure of slowing growth and green transformation.The 14 th Five-Year Plan puts forward the target of reducing energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by 13.5% and 18% respectively by 2025,and the report of the National People’s Congress and the National People’s Congress of 2024 puts forward "strengthening ecological civilization construction and promoting green and low-carbon development.In-depth practice of the concept of green mountains is the golden mountains,synergistic promotion of carbon reduction,pollution reduction,expansion of green,growth,and the construction of a beautiful China in harmony with nature" as an important chapter,all of which puts forward higher requirements for the development of low-carbon transformation in the context of the accelerated evolution of the new round of scientific and technological revolutions and industrial changes.In 2022,the scale of China’s digital economy will reach more than 50 trillion yuan,accounting for about 41.5% of GDP,which has become an important engine and key force driving China’s economic development,and is a centralized manifestation of the implementation of the five development concepts of “innovation,coordination,greenness,openness,and sharing”,which can provide a new path for realizing sustainable economic and social development.Digital economy is a product of the comprehensive integration of digital technology and human society,and a new stage in the development of human economic and social systems.China’s 14 th Five-Year Plan for the Development of the Digital Economy points out that “the digital economy is a new source of power for high-quality development of the economy,and it’s a green economy with low energy consumption,low emissions and low pollution”,and it is conducive to improving the quality of development by relying on digital technology to transform traditional production methods.Digital technologies such as the Internet,big data,artificial intelligence and other digital technologies can break the limitations of time and space,promote technological progress,enhance production efficiency,optimize industrial structure and promote energy change,and at the same time,can accurately identify and timely track newly generated ecological and environmental problems,provide support for scientific protection and systematic governance,and thus promote the synergistic development of digital economy and green economy.Based on the above background,the study focuses on the spatial and temporal evolution of digital economy and carbon emissions from the regional,comprehensive and spatial perspectives of geography,focuses on the effects and paths of the digital economy on carbon emissions,analyzes the trends and reveals the characteristics of the digital economy and carbon emissions at the levels of key enterprises and typical regions in the temporal and spatial dimensions,and conducts theoretical and empirical analyses to investigate the mechanisms of the digital economy affecting carbon emissions.The analyses are of great scientific and applied value for expanding the contents of research on digital economy and carbon emission and realizing regional green and low-carbon transformation.Based on the theoretical foundations of regional sustainable development and low carbon economy,the study focuses on the theoretical and empirical analyses of The Impact of China’s Digital Economy on Carbon Emissions and Countermeasures,and integrates the methods and means of literature review,summarization,and big data analysis,focusing on the spatial and temporal characteristics of the digital economy and carbon emissions at different levels.This paper will focus on the temporal and spatial characteristics of digital economy and carbon emission at different levels,clarify the stage and regional characteristics of the dynamic evolution of digital economy and carbon emission at the macro and micro levels,verify the spatial scale effect,examine the effect and path of digital economy on carbon emission based on spatial spillover perspective,and construct an optimization countermeasure system of digital empowerment and carbon emission reduction with pertinence,regionality and difference,so as to provide theoretical and practical support for the advancement of regional green and lowcarbon transformation.The main research content and core viewpoints are as follows:Firstly,the digital economy can directly drive the development of regional green lowcarbon transformation from the production side,supply chain and consumption side;it indirectly affects regional carbon emission reduction from the multi-dimensional mechanisms of scale agglomeration,structural optimization,technological progress and low-carbon living behavioral patterns;and the development of the digital economy promotes regional cooperation and spillovers through geographic proximity to form a network-enhancing effect.Secondly,the digital economy and carbon emissions are characterized by significant spatial agglomeration and clustering.At the level of digital economy enterprises,the space presents Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei,Yangtze River Delta,Pearl River Delta and ChengduChongqing city clusters as significant high-value areas,presenting a spatial pattern of “driven by city clusters and clustering along the coastline”;at the level of various subsystems of the digital economy,the gap in the effectiveness of the digital economy construction among various regions presents a narrowing trend,and the high-value areas are characterized by fragmented distribution;the digital economy development promotes regional cooperation and spillover through geographical proximity.In terms of the subsystems of the digital economy,the gap between the construction effectiveness of the digital economy in each region shows a narrowing trend,and the high-value areas are spatially scattered;the basic environment of the digital economy shows a more significant centralized distribution trend,and the overall Tyrell Index shows a “W”-type wave floating trend;the spatial distribution of the innovation capacity of the digital economy is dominated by the medium-value areas,and the Shandong Peninsula city cluster shows a more obvious medium-value agglomeration area;the degree of concern for the digital economy has uneven characteristics in spatial distribution.distribution is characterized by imbalance.The total index of digital economy development level shows an upward trend in time series,and the degree of spatial agglomeration has increased.In terms of carbon emission,the carbon emission scale of prefecture-level cities in the study period shows a multi-“V” trend in time sequence,and the degree of concentration of carbon emission scale among neighboring regions has been reduced,and the high carbon emission areas have a decentralized distribution of spatial characteristics.Thirdly,the four subsystems of digital economy construction effectiveness,basic environment,innovation capacity and degree of concern all play a role in promoting carbon emission scale and efficiency of digital-driven prefectural cities.The driving role of carbon emission reduction was produced in the eastern,central,northeastern,and southern and northern regions,and the influence effect of the digital economy development level on carbon emission in resource cities,non-resource cities,and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration,the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration,the Pearl River Delta urban agglomeration,and the Chengdu-Chongqing urban agglomeration was consistent with that of the whole sample.In terms of sub-dimensions,the effectiveness of digital economy construction,basic environment,innovation capacity and degree of attention are all favorable to carbon emission reduction,but the significance and direction of influence differ in different regions.In terms of spatial spillover,its direct and indirect effects on the scale and efficiency of carbon emissions show significant spatial heterogeneity,indicating that the imbalance of the digital dividend in the economy,society and geography is still a phenomenon and a problem that needs attention.Fourthly,factors such as economic agglomeration,industrial intelligence and green technology innovation have a mediating effect in the process of digital economy influencing regional carbon emissions.Economic agglomeration factors show a positive partial intermediary effect in the process of carbon emission reduction empowered by the digital economy;the carbon emission efficiency of industrial intelligence shows a significant negative impact effect,indicating that industrial intelligence has a partial intermediary effect in this process,but fails to play a positive driving role;green technology innovation shows a positive intermediary effect in the process of carbon emission efficiency enhancement promoted by the development of the digital economy,but it has a positive intermediary effect in the process of The intermediary effect in the process of driving regional carbon emission reduction is not significant,and there is still a need to further enhance the research and development and application of low-carbon digital technologies.At the same time,economic agglomeration,industrial intelligence,green technology innovation and other variables have significant regional differences in the impact effect of digital economy-driven carbon emission reduction.Fifthly,based on the large scale,long cycle and high complexity of the industrial digital transformation process faced at this stage,the difficulty of coordinating the pace of transformation in different industries,and the pressure of energy saving and carbon reduction in the construction of digital economy infrastructure,we insist on the basic principles of lowcarbon orientation and green development,data empowerment and innovation drive,inclusive sharing and demonstration leading,and further put forward the top-level design for strengthening the development of the digital economy,perfecting the guidance of green It further proposes specific countermeasures such as strengthening the top-level design of digital economy development,improving the system of guiding green energy consumption,accelerating the process of innovation and autonomy in key areas,strengthening the regional emission reduction synergy,joint prevention and control,and raising the attention of the whole society to the digital economy,so as to provide guidance and reference for the digital economy to empower the green and low-carbon transformation of China’s regions.The innovations of this paper are mainly reflected in the following aspects: firstly,it expands the research on the “scale-industry-innovation” linkage process and transmission path of multi-scale regional digital empowerment of carbon emissions,and deepens and enriches the impact of the digital economy on carbon emissions from a geographical perspective.Build a theoretical mechanism for the development of the digital economy to promote regional carbon emission reductions,enrich and improve the multi-path driving mechanism theory for the digital economy to promote regional green and low-carbon transformation,and expand research on low-carbon contribution transformation from a regional perspective,based on geographical regional and spatial perspectives.Improve the theoretical research system on the impact of digital economy on carbon emissions.The second is to carry out multi-scale verification of carbon emission reduction enabled by the digital economy and systematically establish a regional green and low-carbon transformation optimization strategy system.Scientifically reveal the dynamic evolution process and trend of the scale and efficiency of China’s digital economy and carbon emissions,and systematically construct the spatiotemporal evolution mechanism of the digital economy and carbon emissions from a multi-dimensional perspective.Expand the mechanism and transmission path of the digital economy’s impact on carbon emissions based on regional and spatial perspectives,and provide scientific support to guide the formulation of policies for digitally empowered carbon emissions reduction in different regions.The third is to integrate big data methods and means such as map API,text analysis,and platform index to establish and improve China’s digital economy measurement and evaluation system.Give full play to the data processing,analysis and application capabilities of big data methods such as map API geocoding,Baidu platform search index,and text extraction of corporate annual reports in geographical research,and incorporate point data related to enterprises in the digital economy industry into the development of China’s digital economy Evaluation system to promote theoretical and practical research on digital economy evaluation at different scales and empowering regional green and low-carbon transformation.