Research On The Impact Of Digital Economy On Carbon Emissions

Nowadays,the global warming situation is getting more and more serious,and the world is vigorously promoting low-carbon concepts,actively addressing climate change,and controlling greenhouse gas emissions,and China has also put forward the carbon reduction commitments of "carbon peak" and "carbon neutral".It is a powerful practice to explore the Chinese modernization road.Carbon emissions have emerged as a key factor in determining the degree of economic development,energy conservation,and carbon reduction,and current research on the relationship between the growth of the digital economy and carbon emissions is still in its infancy.Based on the new economic geography theory,externality theory and energy rebound theory,this paper takes the panel data of 30 Chinese provinces and cities from 2011 to 2020 as samples,constructs an index system based on the connotation of digital economy,and measures the level of China’s digital economy by using the entropy-TOPSIS method and the Dagum coefficient.The geographical variations in carbon emission levels and their causes are explored,and then regression models are used to look at the nonlinear effects and spatial heterogeneity effect of the digital economy on carbon emission.These specific findings include:(1)Overall,during the sample observation period,the overall level of China’s digital economy is low and gradually rising,with significant regional differences;the eastern region has the highest level of the digital economy,far exceeding the national and central-western regions;the overall Gini coefficient indicates that the disparity in China’s digital economy is changing less and gradually decreasing,and the interregional differences dominate the overall digital economy development differences for a long time,with a decreasing trend,and the inter-regional The differences between regions mainly originate from the east-west differences.(2)The results of carbon emission measurement show that China’s overall carbon emission is gradually increasing,with significant inter-regional differences;the average value of per capita carbon emission in the western region is the largest,far exceeding the national,central,and eastern regions.The overall Gini coefficient shows that the overall spatial variation of carbon emissions in China is large and the overall trend is rising,and the supervariable density is the main cause of the uneven carbon emissions in China,accounting for 44.39% of the overall variation and irregular fluctuations during the observation period.(3)Baseline regression shows that the coefficient of the primary term(DE)of the digital economy is negative and the coefficient of the second term is positive,indicating that the digital economy and carbon emissions are in a "U" shape relationship,and among the control variables,economic development,fiscal decentralization,environmental regulation,and human capital all show negative inhibitory effects on carbon emissions,while the coefficient of infrastructure construction is positive and significant.The coefficient of infrastructure construction is positive,and there is a significant negative environmental externality.(4)Regional heterogeneity indicates that the impact of the digital economy on carbon emissions varies by region.In the eastern region,carbon emissions and the digital economy have a significant "U" shaped relationship,but not in the central or western regions.The variability of the digital dimension demonstrates that industrial digitalization and carbon emissions have a sizable "U" shaped relationship.while the quadratic coefficient of digital industrialization and carbon emissions is not significant.(5)According to spatial statistical research,the digital economy and carbon emissions are positively correlated,with high-high and low-low aggregation characteristics in space.Further spatial Durbin regression shows that digital economy development has both significant direct and spatial spillover emission reduction effects,and the spillover effect is larger than the direct effect.Among the control variables,all the variables except infrastructure construction show a negative inhibitory effect on carbon emissions.Among the indirect effects,only human capital shows a negative spatial spillover effect.The spatial heterogeneity analysis shows that the carbon emission reduction effect of the digital economy is greater in the central and western regions,and has a significant negative spatial spillover effect.Finally,according to the empirical results,corresponding policy development suggestions are proposed.