Empirical analysis of R&D spending, transport infrastructure development and CO2 emissions in China

Abstract

Over the past few decades, the transportation sector has been the largest contributor to CO2 emissions in China. Research and Development spending leads to technological innovation in the country and could affect the CO2 emission in the country. Therefore, this study analyzes the nexus between CO2 emissions, transport infrastructure and R&D spending in China. A QARDL approach was used for the data analysis, which revealed Research and Development and Transport infrastructure has a positive impact on CO2 emissions. R&D was only significant in the first 25% quantile, while transportation was significant in almost all quantiles. These results suggest that R&D spending in China is mainly allocated to the sectors that emit the CO2 emission. It is recommended that government should allocate more R&D to carbon-reducing sectors. Furthermore, the government should consider green transportation investments and renewable energy projects in the transportation sector to reduce CO2 emissions in the country.

The heterogeneous impacts of environmental technologies and research and development spending on green growth in emerging economies: the moderating role of financial globalization

“…Similarly, RD spending is anticipated to decrease the reliance of EMEs on fossil fuels, encourage the adoption of renewable energy, and increase investment in ETs. Our findings are in line with the justifications of the studies by Kihombo et al (2021), Petrović and Lobanov (2020b), Han et al (2023) and Herzer (2022), who argued that RD investment positively contributes to CO2 mitigation and thus contributes to GEG.…”

“…Additionally, Petrovi and Lobanov (2020a) revealed that an increase in RD investments reduces CO 2 emissions over time. Similarly, Han et al (2023) proved that accelerating RD reduces CO 2 emissions only at lower quantiles. Nonetheless, Pata et al (2023) asserted that sustainable energyrelated RD reduces CO 2 emissions, while nuclear energy-related RD has little or no effect on the quality of the environment.…”

“…Moreover, because of its effect on innovation in many areas of the economy, RD has piqued the attention of scholars and researchers (Han et al, 2023). RD denotes current and capital investments in experimental, fundamental, and applied research.…”

The direct and indirect spatial spillover effects of infrastructure on urban green and smart development

“…As for the influencing factors of UGSD, existing literature mainly explored the impact of FDI (Gao et al, 2022;Xu et al, 2022), economic agglomeration (Hao et al, 2022), environmental regulation (Feng et al, 2021), and technological progress (Sun et al, 2022) on UGSD. Additionally, the technological innovation and information level would also effectively promote urban governance and service efficiency besides the energy element and release their supporting role for UGSD (Xu et al, 2021;Han et al, 2023).…”

Analyzing the nexus between tourism and CO2 emissions: the role of renewable energy and R&D

“…Furthermore, R&D as one of the crucial determinants of environmental quality is less explored in the literature. However, R&D is closely linked with environmental quality (Han et al, 2023). Expanding R&D activities triggers technological innovation in the energy sector and improves energy efficiency.…”