ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Environmental Health and Exposome
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1578139
This article is part of the Research TopicEnvironmental degradation, health, and socioeconomic impactsView all 21 articles
Shift one's trouble to others: Does Climate Policy Uncertainty Promote Enterprises' "Pollution Migration" in the Context of Artificial Intelligence?
Provisionally accepted
- Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics, Hangzhou, China
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In the context of the deteriorating global climate, countries worldwide have rolled out climate policies. These policies are designed to curtail enterprises' pollution emissions and encourage them to actively shoulder social responsibilities.Nevertheless, during the implementation of these policies, due to the diverse climatic conditions in different regions, the uncertainty of climate policies is further intensified.Under such circumstances, exploring the influence of climate policy uncertainty on enterprises' pollution behavior holds great theoretical and practical importance. This study selects 3,702 listed enterprises in 31 provinces of China from 2010 -2022 as research samples to investigate the impact of climate policy uncertainty on enterprises' "pollution migration". The research results are as follows: Climate policy uncertainty remarkably worsens enterprises' pollution migration. Further research indicates that climate policy uncertainty heightens enterprises' financing constraints, thereby aggravating pollution transfer. Moreover, for enterprises with a higher level of artificial intelligence adoption, the impact of climate policy uncertainty is relatively smaller. From the perspective of heterogeneity, climate policy uncertainty exerts a more pronounced influence on the pollution transfer behavior of highly polluting enterprises and NSOEs. This study validates the "pollution haven" hypothesis and offers references for government policy making and enterprise decision making. It is advisable that the government stabilize climate policies, perfect the green financial system, and support enterprises in the application of artificial intelligence. Enterprises, on the other hand, should closely monitor policy trends and enhance their artificial intelligence application capabilities to achieve sustainable development.
Keywords: Climate policy uncertainty, pollution migration, Artificial intelligence adoption, financing constraints, Pollution haven
Received: 17 Feb 2025; Accepted: 26 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wang and WEI. 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: LI WEI, Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics, Hangzhou, China
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