ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Environmental Economics and Management
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2025.1647224
Research on the Impact of Green Finance on Carbon Emissions from the Perspectives of Nonlinearity and Spatial Spillover
Provisionally accepted
- 1Kashi University, Kashgar, China
- 2Shandong Technology and Business University School of Finance, Yantai, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
The integration of low-carbon concepts into financial products through green finance promotes sustainable development and contributes to achieving carbon neutrality by mitigating carbon emissions. However, existing literature has rarely examined the impact of green finance on carbon emissions from nonlinear and spatial spillover perspectives, with insufficient exploration of the underlying mechanisms. This study aims to fill this research gap by adopting a nonlinear perspective and innovatively combining it with spatial econometric models to investigate the pathways and mechanisms through which green finance influences carbon emissions. Using annual panel data from 2007 to 2019 across 30 Chinese provinces, this research examines the relationship between green finance development and carbon emissions. We find that the relationship between green finance and carbon emissions follows an inverted U-shaped curve, with cross-regional spillover effects. Regionally, central and western China demonstrate stronger carbon emission reduction spillover effects compared to eastern China. Through mechanism tests, the study verifies the inverted U-shaped impact of green finance on carbon emissions via energy structure adjustment and technological advancement, further analyzing greenwashing phenomena and examining the lagged effects of green finance on emission reduction. This research emphasizes the significance of green finance in curbing carbon emissions, highlights its crucial role in promoting technological innovation and optimizing energy consumption structures, and calls for enhanced interprovincial cooperation to amplify the overall spatial impact of emission reduction efforts.
Keywords: green finance, carbon emissions, Nonlinear impact, Spatial spillover effect, Greenwashing
Received: 15 Jun 2025; Accepted: 07 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Ma, He, Cui and xu. 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 Ma, Kashi University, Kashgar, China
Xinyuan Cui, Shandong Technology and Business University School of Finance, Yantai, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.