The Research Of Technology Innovations’ Impact On Carbon Emissions In China

Climate change,predominantly driven by carbon dioxide（CO₂）emissions,is the utmost concern of today’s scholars.To mitigate this climatic change,countries like China face immense pressure from the United Nations’Paris Agreement and the worldwide environmental community to reduce CO₂ emissions.Therefore,China seems ambitious to achieve a"carbon emissions peak"before 2030 and"carbon neutrality"before 2060.To deal with this emissions mitigation plan,technology innovations are regarded as a crucial factor.However,considering its rebound effect（CO₂ emissions driving effect）through economic growth,technology innovations might not prove a promising contributor to CO₂ reduction.So,there is a need to investigate further the nexus between technology innovations and CO₂ emissions for conclusive debate.Based on the data of 214 cities in China,this paper uses mediating effects model to scrutinize the direct or indirect influences（through economic growth and industrial structure transformation）of technology innovations on CO₂ emissions from a microeconomic perspective.The main results are as follows:（1）technology innovations has generally increased carbon emissions in China,and the impact of technology innovations and economic growth on carbon emissions presents an inverted"U"-shaped structure,which verifies the"EKC"relationship;（2）the contributions of technology innovations to CO2 emissions are distinguished in different regions（3）Technology innovations generally increase CO2 emissions in China both directly and indirectly（through economic growth and industrial structure transformation）;（4）There is a difference in the impact of technological progress on carbon emission intensity in the north and the south.technology innovations significantly increase the carbon emission intensity in the north,but has no significant impact on the carbon emission intensity in the south;（5）The regression results of the moderating effect show that in cities with larger economic scales,the positive impact of technological progress on carbon emissions is small.