The Impact Of Green Technology Innovation On Urban Carbon Emission Reduction Performance

Rapid urbanization is often accompanied by rigid energy demand and growth in energy consumption.The continuous expansion of urban scale has put enormous pressure on sustainable economic development and climate change governance.As the world’s largest carbon emitter and most populous country,China’s urbanization process has a deeper and more prominent impact on carbon emissions.Improving carbon emission reduction performance is a strong guarantee for climate change mitigation and economic growth,and technological innovation,especially green technology innovation,is the core driver.As the pioneering demonstration area for the construction of ecological civilization in China,the green development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt has been highly valued by the central and local governments.Based on this,this paper measures the carbon emission reduction performance of 108 cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt,and uses patent data to examine whether green technology innovation can improve urban carbon emission efficiency(CEE)and achieve the balance between economic development and green transformation.First,combining the theory of spatial dependence and knowledge spillover,this paper analyzes the spatial correlation effect of green technology innovation and CEE,and explores its spatial distribution pattern and evolution mode with the help of spatial statistical methods.Second,the spatial Durbin model is used to study the effect of green technology innovation on urban CEE.Robustness tests and heterogeneity analyzes are further performed.Finally,this paper analyzes the external institutional conditions and internal influencing mechanisms.The results show that a positive spatial autocorrelation exists in the spatial evolution of both green technology innovation and CEE,and green technology innovation shows a dynamic trend of expanding to the upper reaches of the Yangtze River.After considering the spatial effects,green technology innovation has a significant positive effect on the local CEE,but the spillover effect in the spatially associated cities is not significant.Moreover,the direct effect is more pronounced in cities with higher levels of environmental regulation,better disclosure of environmental information,and higher incentives for officials to be promoted.The mechanism is that green technology innovation has formed a synergy to help improve CEE by adjusting industrial structure,creating green industry clusters and improving energy efficiency of enterprises.This paper also compares the differences between general innovation and green technology innovation.It is found that the relationship between general innovation and CEE is U-shaped,while the improvement of green innovation on CEE is linear,which reflects the direct and important role of green innovation in urban lowcarbon transformation.The results of this paper provide useful enlightenment for improving the urban green technology innovation system.First of all,it is necessary to give full play to the supporting role of scientific and technological innovation,and coordinate the promotion of urbanization and urban carbon emission reduction.Secondly,a good external institutional environment and supervision system provide an important guarantee for the realization of environmental performance.The construction of a perfect green technology system cannot only rely on the single R&D investment,but also requires the successive cooperation of multiple policies,including environmental policies,industrial policies and energy policies.Finally,a regional green coordinated development mechanism needs to be established to promote the optimal allocation of green production factors between regions...