Climate change caused by carbon emissions has a strong influence on the economy and human society. Though numerous previous studies have emphasized the importance of low-carbon innovation on curbing or mitigating carbon emissions, not much attention has been given to the reverse effect. We used a panel of 285 Chinese prefecture-level cities from 2005 to 2016 and Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC)-Y02 patents as low-carbon innovation indicators. The results show that the increasing carbon emissions accelerate cities’ low-carbon innovation in China, and the predicted effect varies across low-carbon innovation types. As carbon emissions rise, more low-carbon innovation will occur in activities with higher carbon emissions. Besides, we explore environmental awareness as the mediation channel for carbon emissions to impact low-carbon innovation. With the help of media, government, and enterprises, the growing carbon emissions promote public environmental awareness and change consumers’ behaviors, motivating companies to speed up low-carbon innovation.
Environmental issues are fundamentally problems of development mode and life style. Meanwhile, the digital economy is an important means of optimizing the economic structure and achieving high-quality economic development, thereby changing the way of production and life, which can improve the aforementioned environmental challenges. Therefore, this research investigates how the digital economy can bring new ideas for reducing pollution in depth. Based on panel data from 285 prefecture-level cities in China, this paper examines the impact of the digital economy on PM2.5. We construct the evaluation system of China’s digital economy development from the three aspects of digital penetration, digital human resources, and digital output. We use the digital economy comprehensive index with digital financial inclusion index as the main component to test the robustness. The results show that the increase of the digital economy reduces PM2.5 emissions in Chinese cities. In addition, we also explore technological innovation as a mediating channel for the digital economy to influence PM2.5 emissions. The digital economy provides a better research environment for technological innovation, conducive to improving cleaner production technology and products. Finally, we find that environmental information disclosure can enhance the impact of the digital economy on PM2.5 emissions.
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