ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Environmental Economics and Management
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2025.1635153
Analysis of The Impact of Digital Economy on Carbon Emissions and Its Intermediary Effect
Provisionally accepted
Bingjie Liu*
Xinyi Fang- Wuhan Business University, Wuhan, China
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In the context of green and low-carbon transformation and development of cities and the new development of digital economy empowered by artificial intelligence technology, exploring the impact of digital economy development on urban carbon emissions has become an important issue at present. This paper uses the entropy weight method to calculate the digital economy development index, and uses the mediation effect model and threshold model to empirically analyze the impact and mechanism of digital economy development on carbon emissions. The results show that: (1) There is an inverted U-shaped relationship between the development of the digital economy and carbon emissions, and the growth of the digital economy first increases carbon emissions, and after reaching a certain value, carbon emissions begin to be suppressed.(2) Electricity consumption and green technology innovation are intermediary channels for the impact of the digital economy on carbon emissions. (3) When urbanization and financial development reach a certain threshold, the digital economy can curb carbon emissions. Based on these research findings, this study proposes targeted policy recommendations that make substantive contributions to low-carbon sustainable development.
Keywords: digital economy, carbon emissions, Mediating effect, Threshold regression, Nonlinear relationship
Received: 26 May 2025; Accepted: 18 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Liu and Fang. 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: Bingjie Liu, Wuhan Business University, Wuhan, China
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