Can Green Innovation Improve Regional Environmental Carrying Capacity? An Empirical Analysis from China

Abstract

Green innovation has become an important driving force for China’s economic transformation and development. This paper selects the 2010–2020 provincial-level regions in China as samples, and adopts a multi-indicator comprehensive evaluation method to comprehensively, objectively and scientifically evaluate the environmental carrying capacity of air pollution in two dimensions: natural resource endowment and human activity impact, and also measures and calculates the green innovation in each province, city and autonomous region to explore the specific impact of green innovation on environmental carrying capacity and its spatial spillover effect; it also explores the heterogeneous effects of green innovation on environmental carrying capacity under different pollution environments. The conclusions show that: (1) Green innovation has a positive impact on environmental carrying capacity. (2) There is a spatial spillover effect of green innovation on environmental carrying capacity. In other words, in areas with higher PM2.5 concentration, that is, lower environmental quality, green innovation has a weaker ability to improve environmental carrying capacity; in areas with lower PM2.5 concentration, that is higher environmental quality, green innovation has a stronger ability to improve environmental carrying capacity. (3) In the process of green innovation affecting environmental carrying capacity, PM2.5 plays the part of a mediating effect, indicating that green innovation is an intermediate transmission mechanism affecting environmental carrying capacity, and the results show that the absolute value of the short-term indirect effect is greater than the absolute value of the short-term direct effect, and the long-term direct effect is greater than the long-term indirect effect.

Evaluation of Resources and Environment Carrying Capacity Based on Support Pressure Coupling Mechanism: A Case Study of the Yangtze River Economic Belt

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The Impact of Fintech Development on Air Pollution

“…Green innovation is an effective way to reduce pollution. The effectiveness appears in slowing down pollutant emissions and purifying and absorbing the existing pollutants, thus bringing beneficial environmental effects [ 46 ]. The authors of [ 47 ] use the system generalized method of moments (SYS-GMM) to analyze the cross-sectional data of 30 provinces in China from 1997 to 2017.…”

The Impact of Green Innovation Capacity on Urban Economic Resilience: Evidence from China’s Yangtze River Delta Region

“…In this context, China regards green development as an important path for transforming its mode of economic development and achieving high-quality development [7]. Green innovation can realize industrial transformation and upgrading, reduce resource consumption and environmental damage, and improve resource allocation efficiency, making it an effective way to achieve high-quality development of the urban economy [8,9]. Accordingly, it is important to enhance urban economic resilience and promote the sustainable development of the urban economy by studying the impact of green innovation on urban economic resilience.…”