Aug 2026· Sustainability· Vol 18, pp. 8689· 1 citation· 61 references
Abstract
Digital infrastructure (DI) plays a dual role in the low-carbon transition. It supports economic operation but also consumes substantial energy. This study explores DI’s impact on carbon emission efficiency (CEE) using data on 41 cities in China’s Yangtze River Delta from 2011 to 2024. The methods used in this study include a two-way fixed effects model, mediation analysis, a panel threshold model, and a spatial Durbin model. The results show that the impact of DI on CEE is U-shaped. Industrial upgrading and technological innovation are the potential channels through which DI affects CEE. Energy efficiency has a single threshold value of 8.533. DI enhances CEE when energy efficiency exceeds this threshold. Spatial analysis indicates that both the direct and indirect effects of DI follow a U-shaped pattern. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the environmental impact of DI varies depending on resource endowments, policy environments, and economic development levels. This study provides insights for global urban agglomerations to balance digital transformation and sustainable development.
In the context of global digital transformation and the “dual carbon” goals, digital infrastructure and clean energy serve as pivotal drivers of regional economic development. However, whether their synergistic effect can promote high-quality regional economic growth remains unclear, and potential regional disparities...
With accelerating global warming, reducing carbon emissions has emerged as a core task of global climate governance. In this process, digital infrastructure acts as a crucial catalyst for achieving sustainability goals. Drawing on a panel dataset covering 287 Chinese prefecture-level cities between 2010 and 2023, this...
The rapid expansion of the digital economy is reshaping the logistics industry. Its environmental effects are critical for the sector’s green transition. Using panel data from 30 Chinese provinces from 2011 to 2022, this study constructs a digital economy composite index via the entropy method. It then applies a two-wa...
Against the background of the global green transition, digitalization has become an important driver of energy-efficiency improvement and carbon mitigation, making its overall environmental effects worthy of further investigation. This study constructs a pollution and carbon mitigation pressure (PCMP) index covering em...
This paper investigates the direct, mediating, and nonlinear effects of digital economy development on energy efficiency using panel data from 30 Chinese provinces spanning 2011–2022. The empirical strategy integrates instrumental variable estimation, mediation analysis, and threshold regression, complemented by exte...
Wen-Fei Song, Juan-Wei Li· Managerial and Decision Econ...· 0 citations
Digital economy has become the mainstream form of global economic development in the new era. Digital finance relies on digital technology to optimize the allocation of financial resources, break traditional financial barriers, and effectively guide the flow of funds to green and low-carbon fields, which plays an impor...
Yuxin Zhang· Frontiers in Humanities and...· 0 citations
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