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Improving the efficiency of factor allocation, breaking the resource curse, and achieving high-quality economic development are an urgent concern in resource-based cities. Using the panel data of 116 prefecture-level resource-based cities in China from 2005 to 2020, this paper constructs the data envelopment analysis-Malmquist index model to measure the level of high-quality economic development; to construct a resource misallocation growth accounting model based on the total production function to measure the distortion coefficient, the threshold panel model is employed to explore the threshold effect of factor market distortion on high-quality economic development. The results yielded three important findings: (1) The green total factor productivity of resource-based cities in China presents spatial heterogeneity and type heterogeneity. (2) Factor market distortion gradient standards are proposed innovatively, and the factor market distortion level shows the spatial heterogeneity and type heterogeneity. (3) The influence of factor market distortion on high-quality economic development in resource-based cities presents a double threshold effect. According to the above research conclusions, this paper gives several policy recommendations to promote the factor marketization allocation and high-quality economic development of resource-based cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green finance is key in supporting industries' green transformation and helping achieve low-carbon economic (LCE) development. This paper constructs an LCE development index using panel data from 30 provinces in China from 2011 to 2020. Based on the establishment of the first five pilot green finance zones in China in 2017 as a quasi-natural experiment, the synthetic control method (SCM) is applied to explore the impact of green finance policies on the level of LCE development and to analyze the mechanism and evaluate the policy effects. The empirical results show that (1) the synthetic analysis unit better fits the development trend before the implementation of the pilot. (2) After the implementation of the pilot reform, the level of LCE development in Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Guangdong, and Guizhou provinces has a more significant enhancement effect, but the enhancement in Xinjiang is not significant, which indicates that the reform effect in Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Guangdong, and Guizhou is significantly better than that in Xinjiang to a certain extent. (3) The samples were statistically significant and passed the placebo and ranking tests. Additionally, this paper analyzes the mechanism of policy effectiveness in terms of sci-tech innovation (STI) and energy consumption structure: green finance as a grip for economic transformation can provide financial support for regional STI and energy consumption structure upgrade and promote the capital flow to green low-energy industries, ultimately achieving sustainable economic development. Based on the above findings, policy insights can be provided for the improvement of green finance pilot regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the impact of population agglomeration on urban economic development quality in various cities of China. The results show that population agglomeration significantly contributes to the improvement of urban green total factor productivity by increasing population diversification, promoting knowledge spillovers, and reducing pollution emission intensity. Moreover, we find that population agglomeration in type II big cities and type I large cities significantly improves green total factor productivity, while the impact of population agglomeration in metropolises and mega-cities on green total factor productivity is not significant. On the one hand, type II big cities and type I large cities are in the period of rising economic development, the population has not yet reached saturation, and there is still a large demographic dividend space. On the other hand, excessive population agglomeration also brings about "urban diseases" such as population congestion and traffic congestion, especially in the metropolises and mega-cities. Finally, using data on producer services and its sub-sectors, we identify a more significant driving effect of high-end talent agglomeration on green total factor productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green finance can promote economic transformation and technological innovation and play a key role in solving the ecological environment and energy crisis. This paper constructs a comprehensive ecological livable environment evaluation system based on the provincial panel data in China from 2011 to 2019. At the same time, the panel mediation effect and spatial econometric model are used to test the impact of green finance on the ecological and livable environment. The main research conclusions include the following: (1) green finance has significantly improved China's ecological and livable environment; (2) green finance improves the ecological and livable environment by improving the level of technological innovation; (3) the impact of green finance on the ecological livable environment has regional heterogeneity, and green finance in the central provinces has a better effect on the improvement of the ecological livable environment; and (4) the ecological livable environment among Chinese provinces has a significant positive spatial correlation. Among them, green finance has significantly improved the local ecological livable environment but reduced the ecological livable environment of surrounding provinces. Based on the above conclusions, this paper suggests that the government should pay more attention to green finance and technological innovation and coordinate the development of the ecological livable environment among provinces. The research results provide empirical evidence for better developing green finance and improving the ecological livable environment and also provide certain theoretical guidance for China's coordinated regional development and high-quality economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economic and technological development zone (ETDZ) serves an essential role in driving green development and ecological civilization. Therefore, it is crucial to investigate the impact of ETDZs on eco-efficiency for sustainable development. This paper investigates the impact of the establishment of ETDZs on eco-efficiency by constructing a differences-in-differences (DID) model on the basis of 253 cities in China from 2004 to 2017 as the dataset. This paper also explores the possible intrinsic impact mechanisms through the channels of industrial structure and technological innovation by constructing a mediating effect model, and the heterogeneous effects of ETDZs on eco-efficiency from the perspectives of regional imbalance and city class heterogeneity. Statistical results report that ETDZs significantly positively affect eco-efficiency and such effects are most significant in the first year after the establishment of ETDZs. Industrial structure upgrading and technological innovation are essential role mechanisms for ETDZs to enhance eco-efficiency. Besides, the enhancement effect of ETDZs on eco-efficiency is only observed in the eastern part of the city, with an insignificant inhibitory effect in central and western parts of the cities. However, the establishment of ETDZs in cities with higher city classes is more beneficial to improve eco-efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At present, China's economy is transforming from rapid development to high-quality development, and environmental pollution stands out as an urgent need to be addressed. Fiscal decentralization is considered to confer economic incentives on local governments to obtain the right to gain and spend in economic growth. However, at the same time, political incentives are given to local officials under the promotion mechanism based on gross domestic product (GDP) assessment, and these two incentives become key to the environmental performance of the jurisdictions. Therefore, this paper incorporates fiscal decentralization, promotion incentives, and environmental pollution into a unified framework and theoretically analyzes the effects of fiscal decentralization, promotion incentives on environmental pollution, and the intrinsic mechanism of action. Using panel data of 30 Chinese provinces from 2002 to 2018, we examine that fiscal decentralization significantly promotes environmental pollution, and this performance is more obvious in economically underdeveloped regions. In terms of its mechanism of action, fiscal decentralization affects environmental pollution by increasing the demand for foreign direct investment, inhibiting technological progress, and enhancing environmental regulation, while foreign direct investment and technological progress significantly inhibit environmental pollution, but environmental regulation does not present a role of pollution control. Further study finds that under the consideration of "GDP-based promotion incentives," local officials will generate "competition for investment," relax environmental standards for FDI, and generate "competition for growth", which will inhibit technological progress and incomplete enforcement of environmental regulations, thus exacerbating local environmental pollution. On this basis, this paper proposes to further deepen the fiscal system reform, promote the optimization of local government competition system, and effectively restrain the vicious competition behavior of local officials under the fiscal decentralization system, so as to provide relevant insights for realizing China's economic transformation as well as high-quality economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The traditional view is that local governments are inclined to ease environmental regulations in response to fiscal pressure (FP) and alleviate FP by sacrificing the environment for economic development (ED). This paper takes Chinese Mainland resource-based cities (RBC) as the research sample but draws different conclusions. The research results are as follows: firstly, for RBC, although FP reduces environmental pollution (EP), it is not conducive to ED. Compared with non-resource-based cities (NRBC), the economic negative effect of FP in RBC is more obvious. Secondly, FP is detrimental to ED by reducing EP, and RBC have not sacrificed the environment to promote ED in the context of FP. This paper summarizes that the development path of RBC should be "optimizing government behavior → increasing FP → improving environmental quality → reducing ED level." Thirdly, the impact of FP on cities with slower economic growth and smaller economic gap is greater, and the impact of FP on cities with better environment is more obvious. This paper argues that facing FP, RBC in China will not trade EP for ED; at the same time, we suggest RBC in other countries in the face of the FP, not only thinking of promoting ED at the expense of the EP and ease the FP, but also the development of green ecological requirement, overall consideration of the relationship between EP and ED, and then achieve green and sustainable ED without degrading the environment as far as possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a relative dearth of empirical studies quantitatively analyzing the implementation effect of green finance reform and innovation pilot zones (GFRIs) on green innovation at the micro-enterprise level. Thus, this paper aims to construct the difference-in-difference-in-difference method to explore the influence of Chinese GFRIs on corporate green innovation of heavy-polluting enterprises based on green patent data. Results show that the pilot policy has significantly decreased green patents of heavy-polluting enterprises by approximately 42.64%, indicating that the policy has a significant innovation inhibition effect and fails to exert the Porter effect. Furthermore, establishing GFRIs has a more effective inhibition effect on the green invention patent than the green utility model patent. Moreover, although enterprises of different scales have different innovation capabilities, the negative impact of GFRIs on green innovation of heavy-polluting enterprises is widespread. Still, the negative impact is more pronounced for big-scale enterprises. The above empirical evidence is essential in formulating green finance development strategies and promoting green economic transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Promoting the green development of resource-based cities is an essential way to achieve sustainable regional economic development. Based on 2009–2019 panel data of the Yellow River Basin cities, this study adopts the super-directional distance function model to measure the green development efficiency of these selected cities. Furthermore, based on the Malmquist-Luenberger index, this paper focuses on the dynamic change trend of green development efficiency and internal driving factors. Furthermore, the Tobit model is used to specifically explore the influencing factors affecting the green development of cities. The findings suggested that the green development efficiency of selected cities falls in the middle to high range and that the efficiency varies among all cities in the Yellow River Basin. Likewise, technical efficiency improvements and technological progress drive development efficiency, and the former contributes more to green development. However, financial development, energy structure adjustments, and environmental regulation can strongly contribute to the green development of cities, and each influencing factor has obvious temporal and regional differences. This paper proposes appropriate policy suggestions to promote the coordinated development of the economic development and environmental protection of the Yellow River Basin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a noteworthy initiative of financial supply-side reform to precisely support the green development system, can green finance (GF) help achieve the dual goals of "carbon peaking" and "carbon neutrality"? Using data from China's provincial panel between 2007 and 2019, this paper measured the green finance index by the entropy method and the carbon emission efficiency (CEE) with carbon emission as the non-desired output by the Super-SBM model. Then, the influence of GF on CEE was empirically investigated by the dynamic panel model and the spatial Durbin model. The findings show that GF can significantly improve CEE and has a positive spillover impact on CEE in provinces with close economic ties; the upgrading of the industrial structure is a key mediator in the transmission of GF to CEE; and regional heterogeneity analysis finds that GF notably improves CEE in eastern, high development levels of economic and GF regions. The research can offer some theoretical and empirical references for green finance to contribute to low-carbon economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foreign direct investment and environmental pollution have been a prominent topic in China's economic development. Therefore, this paper investigates the relationship between foreign direct investment and environmental pollution, and makes practical policy recommendations to support the harmonious development of economy and environment based on the study findings. In this paper, the spatial econometric approach framework with the spatial weight matrix of the Delaunay method is used to examine the influence of foreign direct investment on the level of urban air quality. It uses air quality index as an indicator to measure air pollution comprehensively. Based on the spatial autocorrelation with the aggregation and radiation effects of foreign direct investment, the results show that the distribution of air pollution has considerable spatial impact in terms of spatial nonequilibrium. Through the empirical analysis, our finding reveals that the increase in GDP, the share of secondary industry, and population growth are the important elements affecting the change in air quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The massive use of energy has caused a rapid increase in global carbon dioxide emissions, resulting in a series of environmental problems such as climate warming. Investment in the energy industry can guide funds into green and clean production, reduce carbon emissions in the energy industry, and promote the green development of the energy industry. This paper considers the energy, the environment, the economy, and other factors and focuses on energy consumption and investment structure. Taking 30 provinces in China as research samples, a dynamic spatial Durbin model is established. The results show that the first-order term of carbon emissions has a driving force of 0.5068% for current carbon emissions at a significance level of 1% and that the increase in current carbon emissions will lead to a continued increase in carbon emissions in the next period. The increase in the carbon emissions of neighbouring provinces will increase their carbon emissions through the spatial spillover effect. Whether in the short term or long term, the increase in energy investment and the optimization of the energy investment structure can reduce carbon emissions. The above conclusions can provide a reference for the formulation of government environmental policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to study the influencing factors of the ecological pressure of the energy carbon footprint (EPECF) of China's whole industry from 2000 to 2018. First, the EPECF of 48 sub industries is calculated, then divides 48 sub-industries into high-, medium-, and low-pressure industries, and uses the logarithmic mean Divisia index (LMDI) method to analyze and summarize the main driving forces of China's industrial EPECF changes. Finally, policy suggestions for the future industrial decompression are put forward. The main results are as follows: (1) Economic development is the most important factor to promote the growth of EPECF of the three major industries. (2) At present, the population pressure factors of forest and grassland have little effect, and the effect of returning farmland to forest and grassland has not been truly played. (3) The adjustment of industrial structure has gradually become a key factor in reducing EPECF of the three industries. (4) The gradual stability of energy intensity has a certain inhibitory effect on the increase of EPECF in high-pressure industry. (5) The adjustment of energy structure in low-pressure industry has gradually worked. Therefore, the government should establish an economic sustainable development system, vigorously develop clean energy, and realize the green transformation of various industries. This provides an empirical example for other countries in the world to reduce the EPECF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wastewater discharge reduction (WDR) is a key breakthrough point for China's environmental protection. Based on China's 30 provincial data from 2011 to 2017, this paper applied the logarithmic mean Divisia index (LMDI) method to clarify the determinants of WDR at national, regional, and provincial levels. Except for wastewater discharge factor, economic development, and total population, four innovative factors, total water application intensity, water environment cost, water treatment industry development level, and drainage infrastructure investment scale were first proposed in this study. The results indicated that from 2011 to 2017, at the national level, total water application intensity and water treatment industry development level were dominant contributors to WDR, while other factors all inhibited WDR. At the regional level, the results of wastewater discharge factor, economic development, and water environment cost were similar to the national level. The drainage infrastructure investment scale had a positive effect on WDR in Northeast and South China while having a negative effect on other regions. And except for Northeast China, the water treatment industry development level promoted WRD, while the total population inhibited WDR. Finally, the determinants of WDR at the provincial level were investigated. On this basis, targeted corresponding policies were provided in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper mainly uses the super-efficiency EBM model to measure the environmental efficiency of 30 provinces in China from 2005 to 2019, utilizes the Theil index to analyze the degree of differentiation, and investigate the stochastic convergence of environmental efficiency in different regions. At the same time, it focuses on exploring the direction, intensity, and changing trend of the internal driving factors of environmental efficiency including fiscal decentralization and tax competition, so as to measure and show the overall situation of circular economy development. The research results show that (1) from a national perspective, environmental efficiency shows a pattern of gradual convergence from east to west and from coast to inland. There is a significant stepped regional imbalance in the development level of circular economy in the eastern coastal areas and the central, western inland areas. (2) The differences in environmental efficiency among the four major economic regions were apparently significant while the differences inside each region itself were relatively minor, although in a trend of being gradually widened. There are differences in the development level of circular economy in different regions or within the same region. (3) The inter-provincial efficiency in the eastern, western and northeastern zones maintained relatively stable, while the inter-provincial differences in the central region were expanding. The environmental deficit problem caused by economic development has been alleviated and the basic development model of circular economy has been initially established. (4) Economic development has played a positive role in improving the environmental efficiency of the region. But the resident consumption level inhibited the improvement of the environmental efficiency level of the surrounding areas. The conclusion of this paper can provide a macroscopic reference for the government in finding effective countermeasures to improve environmental efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the tightening of resource constraints and the proposal of the Chinese High-quality Development strategy, innovation-driven has emerged as a new option to balance economic progress with environmental protection. The paper takes Chinese inter-provincial panel data from 2007 to 2017 as a research sample and is based on a spatial Durbin model, investigating the association among green technology innovation (GTI), "green technology-institution" collaborative innovation, and ecological efficiency (EE), while fiscal decentralization is discussed as a moderating factor. According to the results, "green technology-institution" collaborative innovation is positively promoting ecological efficiency and causing spatial spillovers if the economic distance is taken into account. Compared with the single role of green technology innovation, collaborative innovation has a greater role in improving ecological efficiency. Among them, to improve ecological efficiency, it is best to develop green technology innovation and encourage production institutions in a coordinated manner. According to the moderating effect, fiscal decentralization moderates the impact of innovation collaboration on ecological efficiency in a negative way. Therefore, balancing the decentralization of local fiscal expenditures is important to promoting China's ecological efficiency. In addition, China should purposefully promote the degree of synergy between green technology innovation and related institutions for enhancing eco-efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a simple model to theoretically analyze the impacts of emissions of waste gases on industrial profit and mainly finds that industrial producers yield products to pursue profit but emit waste gases, protecting atmospheric environment demands for decline in waste gases, emissions impact profit when the process of production is altered as result of public regulations, and actively treating emissions ease the distortions of production and maintain profit. As a comparison, industrial profit is not impacted by emissions when producers are allowed to emit freely. After theoretical analysis, this study also empirically tests the relationship between the emissions of waste gases and profit as evidenced in China and finds that emissions do not significantly impact profit, except for sulfur dioxide with significantly negative impact; industrial producers with increased capacity for treating waste gases obtained more profits. As a result, the cost expended on treating pollution was compensated in the Chinese industrial sector. Successfully declining waste gases for atmospheric environmental protection and maintaining industrial profit for economic output and social development in the Chinese local economy has global implications because many other countries and regions primarily pursue green and sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Improving the environment and optimizing industrial structure are the primary tasks of resource-based cities in western China. This paper analyzes the impact mechanism and path of environmental effect on the industrial structure using the panel data of 37 prefecture-level resource-based cities in western China from 2008 to 2019. The results show that the environmental effect is beneficial for optimizing the industrial structure of resource-based cities in western China. The economic development and resource endowment amplify the positive impact of the environmental effect on industrial structure upgrades. In resource-based cities with different growth cycles, environmental effect has different impact on industrial structure upgrades. Technological innovation of enterprises and public awareness of environmental protection are effective paths for environmental effect to promote industrial structure upgrading. Therefore, it is really crucial to promote environmental protection, identify regional characteristics, and enhance departmental cooperation for resource-based cities in western China, realizing industrial structure upgrades and sustainable economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid growth of population and economy leads to a further increase in demand for water resources. The contradiction between supply and demand of water resources has become the main bottleneck restricting sustainable development of a regional social economy. Accurate measurement of regional water usage and the harmonious balance between water consumption (WC) and economic growth (EG) are the premise of regional high-quality development. Based on this premise, this paper studied the arid oasis region, Hexi Corridor, as the research object; utilized the theory of ecological footprint to calculate the ecological footprint (EFW) and ecological carrying capacity (ECCW) of water resources from 2005 to 2019; and quantitatively analyzed the water utilization situation in Hexi Corridor in the past 15 years. Then, combining with the coordinated development decoupling evaluation model, the connection between WC and EG was evaluated. The main results of this study were as follows: (1) During the study period, EFW has shown a fluctuating downward trend, decreasing from 1.745 in 2015 to 1.588 hm2/person in 2019. The average annual EFW per capita of 10,000 yuan of GDP decreased by 10.18%, which showed that the water resources utilization efficiency was gradually increasing. However, there was still a large water deficit. The average water ecological pressure index was 16.55; water resources were under great pressure. (2) From 2005 to 2019, the relationship between WC and EG experienced stages of strong decoupling-weak decoupling-weak negative decoupling-strong decoupling in Hexi Corridor, and the coordination between the two was gradually strengthened. (3) The decoupling status of the Hexi Corridor cities was gradually optimized. Zhangye was the best and in a stable decoupling state, followed by Wuwei and Jiuquan. The number of decoupling years accounted for 85.7% and 78.6% of the evaluation period, respectively. The cities with poor decoupling status were Jiayuguan and Jinchang, and the number of decoupling years accounted for 71.4% and 57.1%, respectively. This study provides some highlights for the formulation of arid oasis regional water strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the extensive development model carries China's economy at the forefront of the world, it has brought great environmental pollution problems. The Chinese government hopes to control environmental pollution through green finance and achieve high-quality economic development. Based on the panel data of 30 provinces and cities in China from 2009 to 2019, this paper examines the impact of green finance (GF) on China's high-quality economic development (EQD), environmental pollution (EP), and clean energy production (CEP). In order to study the spatial impact of GF, we put spatial geographic factors into the analysis category, and use the spatial Durbin model to empirically examine the spatial effect of GF on EQD, EP, and CEP. It is found that GF can promote EQD and curb EP in China. However, GF also weakens China's CEP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to further explore the internal transmission mechanism between technological innovation and green development in manufacturing industry under the background of obvious development characteristics in the new era, this paper constructed an integrated methodology system to evaluate the internal impact mechanism of technological innovation value chain efficiency on green development efficiency based on spatial perspective. First, the Network Slack-based model and Global Malmquist-Luenberger model are constructed to reveal the internal development law of technological innovation and green development of manufacturing industry. Secondly, the spatial Dubin model is employed to analyze the impact of current development characteristics and technological innovation on green development. The results show that innovation value chain efficiency is higher than technological innovation efficiency, and economic transformation efficiency is lower than that of technological innovation value chain. During the study period, the efficiency of technological innovation value chain in the four economic regions present fluctuant growth trend, and the eastern region has the highest value. The green development efficiency in the east, central, west, and northeast regions of manufacturing industry is higher than 1, and it shows an obvious spatial agglomeration effect. Besides, the efficiency of technological innovation, information and communication technology, urbanization, and the advanced industrial structure are all conducive to the improvement of green development in manufacturing industry. This paper studies the influence mechanism of technological innovation value chain efficiency on green development based on spatial perspective and puts forward relevant countermeasures and suggestions to effectively promote green development of manufacturing industry, providing relevant theoretical research for green and high-quality development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the quantile cointegration relation between human development, energy production, and economic growth by incorporating corruption into the model for Pakistan through Quantile Autoregressive Distributed Lag (QARDL) model covering the period from 1965 to 2016. The research findings indicate that the association is quantile dependent which provides some exciting results. The Wald test is applied that rejects the null hypothesis and confirms the short- and long-run relationship between the variables. The changes in human development and economic growth are responsible for past and current changes in energy production and corruption that is confirmed through the Error Correction Model (ECM). This paper provides some interesting findings that energy production is contributing positively to human development. Further, energy production contributes negatively to economic growth, while corruption contributes positively to economic growth. These findings will help to make policy measures such as environmental regulation to improve energy efficiency and anti-corruption policies which will improve income level and economic growth of Pakistan economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is agreeable that the rapid progress of civilization throughout the years came at a great price for severe environmental damages. Currently, human civilization is facing the consequences of the environmental damages that have been made for centuries. As a result, taking measures that will take civilization forward yet not make any environmental damages has become a devoir. Taking these measures requires a profound knowledge of the effect of financial development and trade openness on carbon emissions. This paper inspects the association between economic development, financial development, trade openness, and energy usage on carbon emissions for an emerging nation, like Bangladesh. The paper is based on a total of 36 years of data (1980–2016). To ascertain the existence of both long-run and short-run relationships, the autoregressive distributed lag bounds testing method is applied. The outcomes expose that energy usage has a substantial influence on carbon emissions both in the short run and a long run. The influence of economic development is momentous in the long run; however, in the short run, it has no effect. The factors for trade openness and financial development are negative and immaterial equally in the short run and long run. The present study proposes that Bangladesh's government should carry out the strategy to advance substitute energy bases that ought not to release a large amount of carbon emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accelerating industrial green transformation (IGT) is the intrinsic requirement of realizing low-carbon and green economic development. Inward Foreign Direct Investment (IFDI) and Outward Foreign Direct Investment (OFDI) are the main channels of international technology spillover. Whether the coordination of IFDI and OFDI (CIO) can promote IGT and what role the Chinese government's innovation support plays need to be investigated. Using China's provincial panel data from 2003 to 2019, this paper discusses the impact of CIO on IGT and the moderating effect of government's innovation support. It is found that the CIO can significantly promote the IGT. Government providing R&D funds directly can enhance the promotion of CIO to IGT. However, government releasing innovation signal indirectly shows a significant negative impact on the promotion of CIO to IGT. In addition, the impact of CIO on IGT and the moderating effect of government's innovation support are heterogeneous significantly among different regions. This study not only helps to clarify the relationship between CIO and IGT but also provides enlightenment for government to scientifically formulate innovation policies to achieve green economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of clean energy can promote the coordinated development of the economy and the ecological environment. However, few studies have paid attention to the changes in the health status of residents in the process of economic development and energy use. To fill this gap, this paper uses health energy intensity, which refers to the amount of energy consumed per unit of health status (composed of population mortality, maternal mortality, and perinatal mortality), to explore the impact of clean energy (expressed by the share of clean energy consumption in total energy consumption) on economic development and healthy energy intensity. By using the panel data of 30 provinces and cities in China from 2005 to 2019, this paper constructs a simultaneous equation model for empirical analysis from the perspective of the whole country and areas with different income levels. The results show that from the national perspective, in the early stage of clean energy development, the level of economic development and healthy energy intensity increased; however, with the further development of clean energy, the sample period shows that the level of economic development and the healthy energy intensity decreased. Heterogeneity analysis shows that in both high-income and moderate-income areas, clean energy has a U-shaped effect on economic development; but in low-income areas, clean energy has an inverted U-shaped effect on economic development. In high-income and low-income areas, clean energy has an inverted U-shaped effect on healthy energy intensity; but in moderate-income areas, clean energy has a U-shaped effect on healthy energy intensity. China's clean energy market is still in its early stage, and the research conclusions of this paper provide a theoretical basis for the realization of China's clean energy development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a new financial model that balances economic and ecological benefits, green finance (GF) plays an important role in promoting green economic development and ecological environmental protection. Based on the panel data set of 30 provinces in China from 2010 to 2020, this paper uses the synthetic control method (SCM) to explore the impact of the green financial reform pilot policy (GFRP) on the green technology innovation (GTI) capabilities of pilot areas and evaluate the policy effects. The specific research conclusions are as follows: (1) On the whole, the GFRP has a positive role in promoting the GTI capability of the pilot areas, but this role is different due to the different resources, environment, and economic development levels of each region. The areas with economic development levels in the middle and head are obviously affected by the policy, and the less developed areas are less affected by the policy or even have a restraining effect. (2) Although the pilot policy has improved the GTI capability of the pilot area, the promotion effect is unstable, that is, the implementation effect of the policy is unstable. In the early stage of policy implementation, the promotion effect of the policy on the regional GTI capacity is the most obvious, and this promotion effect begins to show a downward or stable trend in the 2–3 years after the policy is implemented. Based on the above conclusions, it can provide some reference for the revision and improvement of GFRP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green technology innovation is the basic driving force of green economic development. The compatibility of the composite system composed of green technology innovation, green finance, and environmental regulation is the decisive factor of whether regional economy can achieve sustainable development. Based on the data of regional green technology innovation in China from 2012 to 2020, this paper discusses the coupling coordination mechanism and coupling coordination level among green technology innovation, green finance, and environmental regulation based on entropy method. It is found that the coupling and coordinated development of regional green technology innovation-green finance-environmental regulation system in China is above medium level. However, there is a big gap in the coupling coordination level among different regions. The coupling coordination level in eastern China is relatively high, and the coupling coordination level in other regions is deviated. Most regions of China have a great potential for improvement. On this basis, this paper puts forward policy suggestions for improving the overall coupling and coordination level of the system to promote national green development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deeply understanding the driving effect of green finance on green development is of great significance to promote economic transformation and realize the long-term green development. This paper uses the entropy method and undesirable-SE-SBM model to measure provincial green finance and green development efficiency respectively from 2008 to 2018. And based on the above, the panel threshold model is constructed to discuss the nonlinear relationship between green finance and green development efficiency from the first empirical verification. The results show that ① the impact of green finance on green development has a significant single threshold effect, only when R&D investment crosses 2.810 can green finance significantly promote green development efficiency, and before that, it will suppress green development efficiency. ②At present, a few provinces in China have crossed the threshold value of R&D investment, only including Beijing, Tianjin, and Shanghai, while the R&D investment of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shandong, and Guangdong gradually approaches the threshold value. Therefore, improving the construction of the green financial system, correctly guiding the direction of green capital investment, and strengthening the supervision of environmental information disclosure are important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, the rapid development of digital finance in China has exerted a subtle influence on many aspects of social and economic development. However, the research on the impact of digital finance on corporate green innovation is rather lacking. In order to fill this gap, this paper uses the "Peking University Digital Finance Index" to evaluate the micro impact of financial innovation development on environmental governance from the firm level. The results show that digital finance can significantly improve the quantity and quality of corporate green innovation, and this effect still exists after considering endogeneity and a series of robustness tests. The promotion effect of digital finance on the quantity and quality of corporate green innovation is more obvious in state-owned, eastern, and mature enterprises. In addition, we find the mechanism behind the positive relationship between digital finance and corporate green innovation: digital finance makes firms more transparent and funds flow more convenient. Overall, this paper provides a micro explanation of environmental governance for the accelerated popularization of digital finance in emerging markets, which is urgently needed for most emerging economies seeking high-quality development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem of global climate change is a common problem faced by all countries, and developing countries will face heavier pressure to reduce carbon emissions while promoting economic development. China is currently in a period of economic transformation, and the contradiction of industrial structure upgrading is becoming more and more prominent. The unreasonable industrial structure has caused a large consumption of resources, hindering the optimal allocation of resources and affecting carbon emissions. Technological innovation is an important force to cope with environmental changes, promote economic growth, and improve comprehensive competitiveness. Can technological innovation achieve carbon emission reduction under industrial structure upgrading? In this paper, industrial structure upgrading, technological innovation, and carbon emissions are studied together, and the impact of industrial structure upgrading, technological innovation on carbon emissions is theoretically analyzed, as well as how industrial structure upgrading acts on carbon emissions through technological innovation. An empirical test is conducted using 30 provincial panel data in China from 2005 to 2017, and it is found that industrial structure upgrading can reduce carbon emissions. An econometric analysis based on the mediating effect model finds that industrial structure upgrading has both a direct carbon emission reduction effect and a mediating effect of reducing carbon emissions through technological innovation, and the mediating effect of technological innovation in reducing carbon emissions remains significant in the regression analysis of sub-regions. Based on the research of this paper, it is suggested that the advanced development of industrial structure should be promoted, the rationalization of industrial structure should be promoted, the innovation development strategy should be firmly implemented, and the level of technological innovation should be promoted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

These days, the most serious threats to the global economy, society, and humans are climate change and global warming, mainly rooted in the sharp increase of economic activities and their concomitant greenhouse gas emissions. This paper aims to investigate how economic complexity and various sectors of the economy affect environmental and economic development. This study employs a modified IPAT and STIRPAT model to investigate the relationship of environmental pollution and economic development with economic complexity, economic structure, and technology in 21 MENA and 34 OECD countries between 1971–2017. Our findings show that economic complexity and industrialization positively affect economic growth in both groups of countries. However, economic complexity and industrialization affect environmental pollution in MENA and developing countries positively but in OECD and developed countries negatively. This relationship accepts the Environmental Kuznets Hypothesis for the nexus of economic complexity and environmental pollution. According to the findings, policymakers in developing countries should increase environmental considerations in their development planning. Also, developed countries should assist developing countries in their endeavors to decrease environmental contamination by supplying technology transfer and financial aid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As resource shortages and environmental problems keep coming up, economies urgently need renewable energies as the new driving force for development. As one of the representatives of renewable energy, the photovoltaic (PV)'s trade has received much attention from all walks of life. Based on bilateral PV trade data, complex network methods and exponential random graph models (ERGM), this paper constructs global PV trade networks (PVTNs) during 2000–2019, describes detailed evolution features and verifies the influencing factors of the PVTNs. We find that (1) PVTNs have obvious characteristics of the small-world network, accompanied by disassortativity and low reciprocity. (2) Asia, North America, and Europe are the top 3 leading regions in the PVTNs. (3) China is the largest exporter, and the US is the leading recipient. Germany is an essential importer as well as exporter of PVTNs. (4) The formation and evolution of the PVTNs are significantly affected by transitivity, reciprocity, and stability. PV trade is more possible when economy-pairs are WTO members, located on the same continent, or with asymmetrical urbanization rates, industrialization rates, technological level or environmental supervision strength. Specifically, economies with higher industrialization rates, technological levels, stricter environmental regulations or lower urbanization rates are more likely to import PV. Economies with higher economic development, larger area, and greater trade openness are more inclined to trade PV. Besides, economic partners that share a religion or language, have common historical colonial ties or geographic borders or sign regional trade agreements are more likely to trade PV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the last few decades, the issue of sustainability of the growth process has become the prime objective for most economies. The quality of the environment contributes significantly to achieving the objective of sustainability of the growth process. Therefore, in recent years, the policy of world economies increases its emphasis on growth, prosperity, and opportunities for all with a clean environment. Keeping in this mind, in the present paper, we examined the impact of income, technological innovation, income inequality, and industrialization on the environment quality in Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) during the period 1996–2016. The results display cross-sectional dependency within the panel of BRICS nations. Westerlund's cointegration test verifies a long-run relationship between the concerned variables. The dynamic ordinary least square method (DOLS) exhibits that technological innovation has negative while industrialization has a positive impact on the degradation of environmental quality. The results support the existence of the environment Kuznets curve (EKC) to per capita gross domestic product (GDP). Additionally, the paper evaluates the causal link between the variables by using the Dumitrescu-Hurlin panel causality test, and the outcomes support the existence of feedback hypothesis between environmental quality and GDP per capita, and between environmental quality and income inequality. Based on the findings, innovation-driven industrialization and development with equitable distribution of income can help these economies to attain the objective of sustainability of the growth process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have done more research on the relationship between carbon emission reduction, energy consumption, and economic growth in specific countries or regions, which rarely consider the issue of heterogeneity between countries or regions, and also lack the refinement of energy consumption categories. Using panel data from 2000 to 2017, this paper divided the top 28 global carbon emission countries into developed countries and developing countries, and explores co-integration and causality between renewable energy consumption, non-renewable energy consumption, economic growth, and carbon emission. Results suggested that there is a two-way causal relationship between carbon emissions and economic growth in all economies. There is a two-way causal relationship between economic growth in developed countries and consumption of renewable and non-renewable energy, while there is no significant relationship between economic growth and energy consumption in developing countries. There is a two-way causal relationship between carbon emissions and renewable energy in all economies, but there are significant differences; there is a two-way causal relationship between carbon emissions in developed countries and non-renewable energy, and only one-way causality exists in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the process of China's economic transformation and structural adjustment, the trend of thermal power industry transfer is more and more obvious. Under the background of industrial transfer, the research of the influence of environmental regulation on technological innovation has become a vital issue that needs to be discussed urgently for the current high-quality economic development. Based on the thermal power industry data in 30 provinces of China from 2008 to 2017, this paper constructs a mediating effect model to examine the relationship among environmental regulation, industrial transfer, and technological innovation. The results reveal that: (1) there is a U-shaped relationship between environmental regulation and technological innovation; (2) the increase of environmental regulation intensity promotes the thermal power industry to move to areas with loose environmental regulation; (3) industrial transfers play a mediating role in the process of environmental regulation influencing technological innovation. Therefore, the government should formulate scientifically effective environmental regulation policies so that the thermal power industry can realize orderly transfer and realize technological innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emerging markets face severe ecological and environmental problems in periods of economic and political transition. The existing literature analyses the impact of technology on environmental benefits and the role of technology on the green innovation of enterprises, mostly from the perspective of technology spillover in enterprises in mature markets. Based on a sample of 229 Chinese cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As), this paper explores the role of technology-driven cross-border M&As (TDC M&As) in green innovation, finding that TDC M&As have a significant promoting effect on green innovation. A higher degree of ownership concentration positively promotes the relationship between TDC M&As and green innovation in the enterprise. This paper divides enterprises into state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and political connection enterprises, with the nature of SOEs negatively affecting the relationship between TDC M&As and green innovation, the nature of political connections significantly promoting the relationship. Similarly, formal institutional distance negatively interacts with TDC M&As to affect the green innovation of enterprises, while informal distance interacts positively with TDC M&As. This paper has important implications for emerging market enterprises in realising the transformation of the mode of economic growth and achieving harmonious development between enterprises and the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the independent effect is widely examined, the joint effect of financial development and renewable energy on energy consumption has largely been ignored in the current literature. Eleven members of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) must balance the simultaneous requirements of supporting financial development, increasing renewable energy usage, and minimizing the adverse effects of energy consumption on the environment. Unlike previous studies, the paper examines the joint and independent effects of financial development and renewable energy on energy consumption for the CPTPP countries during the 1971–2019 period using the second-generation estimator analysis. Our variables are carefully selected based on solid hypotheses and empirical studies. Our results confirm an inverted U-shaped relationship between energy consumption and economic growth. We claim that financial development affects energy consumption depending on the level of renewable energy consumption. The bidirectional causality effect between financial development, energy consumption, and economic growth is also confirmed. Robustness checks have been conducted using sub-samples based on the per capita income threshold of $39,054. Policy implications have emerged based on these findings. An increase in renewable energy consumption can help these nations achieve the dual objectives: (i) to support financial development and to enhance economic growth and (ii) to reduce an adverse effect of financial development and economic growth on the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, there has been a persistent intensification of the global greenhouse effect. Balancing carbon emission reduction with economic growth poses an unprecedented global challenge. To better comprehend the relationship between economic growth and carbon emissions, this study first utilized the Tapio decoupling index to compare the decoupling relationship (the USA, Japan, and Germany) and three developing countries (China, India, and Russia) from 2000–2020. Additionally, the logarithmic mean Divisia index (LMDI) method was employed to investigate the factors influencing changes in carbon emissions. Our findings indicate that (1) the USA and Germany basically achieved strong decoupling; China, India, and Russia mainly showed weak decoupling; and Japan showed recessive decoupling. (2) Economic growth predominantly contributed to increased carbon emissions, with a lesser impact from population growth. A significant reduction in energy intensity restrained carbon emissions growth, as did energy structure replacement in most countries, excluding Japan. Based on this, a decoupling effort index was formulated. It has shown that the decoupling efforts made by developing countries are weaker than those of developed countries, primarily attributed to a lesser degree of decoupling between energy intensity and structure. This paper offers valuable insights for developing countries undergoing a low-carbon economic transformation. They should counterbalance carbon emission escalation resulting from economic growth through technological and energy structure improvements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To find a way to realize sustainable development, this paper applied a cross-sectional ARDL (CS-ARDL) method to explore the interaction between carbon emissions, economic development, and health care expenditure for OECD countries. Firstly, we conduct a cross-sectional test to check whether the data is confronted with this issue. Secondly, we conduct a panel unit root test and cointegration test to confirm whether the ARDL-based method is suitable for our data. Thirdly, we analyze the results and provide possible explanations. Lastly, we conduct a short-term causality test to detect the connection between different variables. The main conclusion of our study includes: 1) Health care is a necessity in OECD countries. 2) Environmental deterioration places a heavy burden on health care expenditure in OECD countries. 3) Health care expenditure of last year negatively affects health care expenditure. 4) There is a short-run causality relationship from CO2, economic development, and dependency rate of youth to health care expenditure in OECD countries. Related policy proposals are provided according to our analysis of the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A useful spatial pattern of cultivated land utilization in mountainous areas is a basic prerequisite for promoting efficient utilization of cultivated land and has a practical use for ensuring regional food security and rural revitalization. In this paper, we use Enshi and Lichuan cities as case studies and the PLUS model to analyze the spatial differentiation characteristics of cultivated land from 2000 to 2020. In addition, we simulated the spatial pattern of cultivated land in 2030 concerning the ecological priority scenario (scenario I) and the ecological and economic coordination scenario (scenario II). The results show that (1) the degree of cultivated land fragmentation from 2000 to 2020 is characterized as "high in the east and low in the west," and the spatial aggregation of cultivated land decreases slightly over time and that there is a risk of increasing fragmentation of cultivated land in the future. (2) The complexity of cultivated land shape shows a fluctuating decrease between 2000 and 2030, and an overall trend of landscape homogenization. (3) The spatial distribution of cultivated land is concentrated in the peak cluster depressions and river valleys. The imbalance in the distribution of cultivated land has increased in the past two decades which should be curbed in the future. (4) In 2030, concerning the ecological priority development scenario, cultivated land use tends to evolve in the direction of balanced distribution and a relatively complex shape. (5) Concerning the coordinated ecological and economic development scenario, the spatial aggregation of cultivated land is higher and the patches of cultivated land are more regular, but the distribution imbalance is more serious. The results can provide scientific references for sustainable and effective use of cultivated land in mountainous areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How to maintain the momentum of sustained economic growth has always been an important issue of concern to all countries in the world. Using a three-level progressive analysis framework, the article provides an in-depth analysis of the evolution of supply-side economic growth drivers in China from 2003 to 2021 and the magnitude of their roles. The results show that in terms of the composition of growth drivers, total factor productivity makes the largest contribution to economic growth, while the contributions of capital scale and labor scale rank second and third, respectively; in terms of the industrial dimension, the changes in the contributions of each factor to GDP growth mainly originate from the influence of secondary and tertiary industries. From the decomposition of total factor productivity growth, industrial capital productivity and capital allocation structure both play a positive pulling effect on overall capital productivity, but have a weak downward trend. Industrial labor productivity and labor allocation structure both play a slight negative pulling effect on overall labor productivity; from the deep decomposition of growth momentum, industrial factor productivity and industrial factor allocation structure play a major positive pushing effect and a weak negative pushing effect on economic growth, respectively. The conclusion of this paper provides a valuable reference for developing countries on how to maintain the momentum of economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the most developed city circle in northern China, allocating CO2 emission quotas at the Bohai Rim Economic Circle (BREC) city level is essential for developing specific abatement policies. Thus, with reflecting multi-principles (fairness, efficiency, sustainability, and feasibility), this paper formulates the CO2 emission quota allocation among cities in BREC in 2030 based on the multi-objective decision approach. We first propose three allocation schemes based on the principles of fairness, efficiency, and sustainability, which are conducted by entropy method, zero-sum gains data envelopment (ZSG-DEA) model, and CO2 sequestration share method, respectively. Then, the CO2 allocation satisfaction is defined and used to measure the feasibility principle which is integrated as the objective function of the multi-objective decision model together with three allocation schemes to obtain the optimal allocation results. The results show that Beijing, Tianjin, Dalian, Shijiazhuang, Yantai, Weifang, and Linyi enjoy the largest CO2 emission quotas, having 1179.94 Mt in total and accounting for 31%. Beijing has the highest quotas, and Laiwu has the lowest emission quotas. Cities with large energy consumption and less CO2 sequestration capacity, such as Tianjin, Handan, and Tangshan, experience a decrease in the emission quota shares from 2017 to 2030, indicating that these cities would undertake large emission reduction obligations. Sensitivity analysis shows that Beijing, Zibo, and Jinan are more sensitive to minimum satisfaction changes, and the total satisfaction experiences an increase first and declines thereafter. Based on the results above, cities with large pressure to reduce CO2 emissions should not only promote economic development but also improve the capacity of CO2 sequestration by enhancing environmental protection to realize emission reduction targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Manufacturing agglomeration promotes rapid economic development while also causing severe environmental pollution. This paper investigates the impact and mechanism of manufacturing agglomeration on haze pollution from the Chinese city level. Furthermore, we discuss the moderating effect and threshold effect of the three urban forms of urban external shape complexity, urban compactness, and urban fragmentation on the relationship between the two. The result shows the following: (1) The aggregation of the manufacturing industry presents an inverted U-shaped characteristic of promoting first and then inhibiting haze pollution in China's overall, eastern and central regions. (2) The complexity of the city's external shape and the city's fragmentation has a positive moderating effect on the relationship between manufacturing agglomeration and haze pollution. And urban fragmentation shows a negative moderating effect on the relationship between the two when the level of manufacturing agglomeration is on the right side of the inverted U-shaped curve. (3) The urban form shows a significant double threshold characteristic for haze pollution, increasing the complexity of the city's external shape and the city's fragmentation. The agglomeration of manufacturing shows the characteristics of first inhibiting and then promoting haze pollution. As urban compactness increases, the inhibitory effect of manufacturing agglomeration on haze pollution increases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green finance has the obvious impetus function to economic ecologization development. Through the test of the spatial agglomeration degree of China's green finance and ecological economic development index from 2001 to 2017 (30 provinces except for Hong Kong, Tibet, Taiwan, and Macao), this paper analyzes the spatial correlation of the green finance index and the ecological economic development index. It uses the spatial panel econometric regression analysis model to reveal the impact of Green Finance on China's economic ecology. Results show that (1) the development level of green finance and economic ecologization in China has improved to varying degrees in different periods. However, there are still noticeable regional differences between the eastern, central, western, and northeast regions; (2) green finance plays a positive role in promoting economic ecologization. Developing green finance in one province can promote its economic ecologization and positively impact on economic ecologization of surrounding provinces. (3) Economic ecologization also has a positive spillover effect. The improvement of the ecological economic level of a province can drive the improvement of the ecological economic level of other provinces. Therefore, improving green finance across the country has become a meaningful way to promote economic ecology and promote China's high-quality development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The level of development of industrial enterprises is related to a country's or region's overall competitiveness. It is critical to assess the green innovation efficiency of regional industrial enterprises scientifically and effectively in order to improve a country's overall green innovation capability. The green innovation system is divided into three sub-stages in this paper: technology development, economic transformation, and environmental protection. Based on the theory of innovation value chain, a three-stage super-efficiency DEA model of the cooperative game including shared inputs and undesirable outputs is constructed to calculate the overall efficiency, three sub-stages efficiency, and dynamic evolution of green innovation of industrial enterprises in China's provincial administrative regions and eight economic zones from 2015 to 2019 (divided by the time of ultimate output). The results indicate that (1) in terms of overall efficiency, the efficiency of green innovation is not high, and there are clear regional differences, as evidenced by the following states: the middle reaches of the Yangtze River economic zone > the eastern coastal economic zone > the southern coastal economic zone > the northern coastal economic zone > the northeastern economic zone > the northwestern economic zone > the middle reaches of the Yellow River economic zone, and the overall efficiency of the southwestern economic zone fluctuates around the average level of China; (2) from the standpoint of various stages, economic transformation stage efficiency > overall efficiency > technology development stage efficiency > environmental protection stage efficiency. The improvement of overall efficiency is largely dependent on the high efficiency of the economic transformation stage, but low efficiency in the environmental protection stage results in overall low efficiency; (3) from the perspective of the dynamic evolution trend, the overall efficiency and three sub-stages have been improved to varying degrees. However, due to the low efficiency of the environmental protection stage, there is still a long way to go to achieve the goal of innovation-driven development; (4) based on the classification analysis, it was determined that the green innovation efficiency of industrial enterprises in only a few regions belongs to the "three high innovation type," which must take targeted measures to improve the inefficient innovation process links. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates how the non-linear connection between energy consumption and economic development is influenced by energy intensity level in the context of energy-capital substitution. We firstly analyze the substitutability/complementarity between energy and capital by estimating VES production function within the standard Solow growth model framework for 58 countries over the period of 1975–2017. The selected countries are classified into four groups according to their relative energy intensity levels and their accessibility to energy. The estimation findings reveal that energy and capital are complements in the final output for each country group. Hence, in this paper, as further analysis, the study examines whether or not energy consumption always fosters economic growth. We investigate the non-linear link between energy consumption and economic development by constructing a panel smooth transition regression (PSTR) model for each country group and looking at the impact of energy intensity in this relationship. The empirical results provide that for each country group, there is a threshold level for energy intensity. Regardless of whether a country is a net energy exporter or net energy importer, it needs to use energy efficiently and not exceed the ideal energy intensity level in both production and consumption to maintain long-term economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Achieving global climate change mitigation targets requires low-carbon production in agriculture. In such an endeavor, a new classification of climate-adaptive technology is defined to affect agriculture towards the low-carbon direction, but such an impact has seldom been empirically tested in the literature. In this paper, we investigate the impact of climate-adaptive technological innovation on agricultural carbon efficiency, a proxy for low-carbon agriculture. We use a stochastic directional distance function framework and a cross-country dataset covering 38 OECD countries. Additionally, we test the heterogeneous impact, considering that regional economic development is a crucial condition for deploying advanced technologies. The findings show that climate-adaptive technological innovation can promote carbon efficiency in agriculture, and this aggregate effect hides significant heterogeneity at different levels of economic development. The higher the economic development level is, the better climate-adaptive technological innovation contributes to improving agricultural carbon efficiency. Then, related policy implications are set forth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clean energy development has played a pivotal role in economic transformation. Based on the panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2006 to 2021, the spatial Dubin model was used to empirically investigate the impact of clean energy development on green economic growth. Furthermore, this research selected industrial structure optimization as the mediating variable to analyze the mediating effect between clean energy development and green economic growth. The results are as follows. Firstly, there is a positive spatial correlation for green economic development, in which the level of green economic development in a region can be influenced by neighboring regions. Secondly, there is a significant positive relationship between clean energy development and green economic growth, in which the clean energy development has a positive impact on green economic growth. Thirdly, the mediating effect analysis demonstrates that the clean energy development can influence green economic growth through industrial structure optimization. Based on the findings in this paper, several suggestions are proposed. China should formulate a unified national strategy for green economy by coordinating and balancing regional differences, develop the clean energy industry to promote green economic growth, and pay attention to the intermediary effect of industrial structure to promote green economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PM2.5 is a bad output of China's improved industrialization and rapid economic development, which seriously threatens people's health and greatly hinders the sustainable economic development. Studying the socio-economic driving factors of PM2.5 emissions is of great significance for reducing air pollution and realizing green development. Therefore, based on the simultaneous consideration of space technology differences and time technology progress, this paper constructs an index decomposition analysis-production-theoretical decomposition analysis decomposition model under the global meta-frontier-production theory. Then, we decompose the PM2.5 emission concentration of 30 provinces in China from 2005 to 2018 into nine driving factors and discuss the impact of different factors from the national, regional, and provincial levels. The results reveal that economic activity is still the main factor to promote the increase of PM2.5 emission, but its effect decreases, while the inhibitory effect of catch-up effect on PM2.5 concentration increases gradually. In addition, economic activities have the greatest impact on the East China, while the time catch-up effect has a more significant impact on the Central and Western China. Moreover, the influence of energy intensity effect, space technology catch-up effect, and time technology catch-up effect is gradually increasing, which have become important factors to inhibit the PM2.5 emission. Based on the above results, we put forward relevant policy suggestions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is currently in the process of the middle and late stage of industrialization, and energy-related CO2 emissions have reached 10 Gt. This paper models energy consumption and related CO2 emissions and analyzes the development trends of various driving factors of CO2 emissions, explicitly considering China's economic and social development goals in the medium- and long-term. Different scenarios for 2020–2060 are projected based on the Kaya identity. Energy consumption will peak at 6,200 Mtce in 2035 in the BAU scenario with the energy-related CO2 emissions peaking at 11.1 Gt in 2026–2027 advanced by the rising non-fossil energy share, while energy consumption and CO2 emissions in the accelerated transition scenario would be potentially reduced by 300 Mtce and 300–400 Mt respectively. In the BAU scenario, the net CO2 emissions will remain around 2,000 Mt in 2060, after removing 1,800 Mt by CCS/CCUS, indicating that China needs to enhance its post-2030 policy to deliver the carbon neutrality pledge. Steady energy efficiency improvement, radical industrial and energy restructuring are three key driving forces for carbon neutrality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]