Research On The Impact Of China’s Digital Economy Development On Provincial Carbon Emissions

As the world’s largest carbon emitter,China,as an advocate of climate change,has not only acted responsibly,but also committed to finding a new path to reduce carbon emissions.In recent years,the digital economy has developed rapidly and has become a pillar of China’s new industrial reform,an important engine for urban development,and its role in environmental improvement has become increasingly prominent.The digital economy can break the boundaries of time and space,simplify the steps of information flow,reduce unnecessary waste of resources,and ultimately improve carbon performance;at the same time,it also helps less economically developed regions to solve energy-related problems.China is experiencing unprecedented urbanization,and low carbon city development is important to achieve the "double carbon goal".The digital economy is important for carbon emission reduction,and it is crucial to study the impact of the digital economy on carbon emission reduction.To estimate the impact of digital economy on carbon emissions,this paper selects panel data of 30 Chinese provinces from 2011 to 2020,combines the econometric model for nonlinear analysis,and decomposes the carbon emission reduction effect into direct effect,indirect effect and spatial spillover effect,and analyzes its mechanism of action from the perspectives of population size,economic development and industrial structure.The results of the study firstly verify that the digital economy and carbon emissions have an inverted U-shaped relationship,i.e.,the digital economy first increases and then suppresses carbon emissions.From there,a panel threshold model(PTM)is further employed to study that digital economy development has different effects on carbon emissions at different levels,and the results show that there is a significant digital economy index threshold effect,and the digital economy drives the increase of energy consumption during the initial development is the main path to influence local carbon emissions,and after the longterm development exceeds the threshold,it shows the effect of suppressing carbon emissions.In addition,under the spatial perspective,using the spatial Durbin model(SDM),it is found that the spatial spillover effect of the digital economy on carbon emissions is also inverted u-shaped,and the direct effect of the digital economy on carbon emissions is greater compared with the indirect effect.Robustness tests support these findings.The heterogeneous effects of the digital economy index on carbon emissions are spatially manifested as a double threshold,forming a threezone system of effects,and overall still show the effect of short-term promotion and long-term suppression of carbon emissions.Through the previous empirical study on the effect of digital economy development on carbon emissions,the following suggestions are made: First,the layout of digital infrastructure should be appropriately accelerated to facilitate the construction of smart cities and strengthen the support of digital technology for urban carbon reduction.Second,the green transformation of energy-intensive industries should be accelerated.Encourage enterprises to integrate digital technology into industrial development,accelerate the transformation of results and improve the utilization of green energy.Third,the government supports the development of digital economy.Such as industrial support,policy subsidies as well as encouraging efficient offering of related courses,etc.Fourth,promote the reform and innovation of digital technology to achieve breakthroughs in low-carbon technology and new energy technology.