ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Environmental Economics and Management
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2025.1618432
Effect of Digital Economy Development on Carbon Emission Intensity: Evidence from Chinese Provinces
Provisionally accepted
- 1Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, Wuhan, Hubei Province, China
- 2Bryant University - BITZH, Zhuhai, China
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Reducing carbon emission intensity is a crucial element in advancing sustainable development in China. In the context of continuous technical progress, the expansion of the digital economy may provide avenues for emissions reduction. This paper constructs an index to measure digital economy progress utilising the entropy approach, based on data from 30 Chinese provinces from 2010 to 2024. Panel data regression models are then applied to examine the potential linkages between digitalization and carbon emission intensity, along with the possible mediating mechanisms involved. The main results are as follows: (1) Baseline regression estimates suggest that both the overall digital economy index and its three core sub-components (with coefficients of -1.801, -7.784, -6.904, and -3.165, respectively) are associated with declines in carbon emission intensity, pointing to a potential mitigating effect. (2) Considerable regional heterogeneity is observed, with the eastern and central provinces exhibiting a more pronounced and statistically significant negative association, while the effect appears weaker and statistically insignificant in the western region. (3) Further analysis of mediating pathways indicates that improvements in energy structure and innovation capacity may serve as channels through which digital economy development contributes—albeit to varying degrees—to reducing carbon emission intensity.
Keywords: The digital economy, Carbon emission intensity, Theoretical analysis, Panel regression model, The Mediating Mechanism Analysis
Received: 28 May 2025; Accepted: 29 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 CHEN and JIANG. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: YU-TONG JIANG, Bryant University - BITZH, Zhuhai, China
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