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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Energy Res.
Sec. Sustainable Energy Systems
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fenrg.2024.1425313
This article is part of the Research Topic Advancing Urban Sustainability: Integrating Renewable Energy for Accelerated Zero-Carbon Community Transitions View all articles

Impacts of the digital economy on urban low-carbon sustainable development

Provisionally accepted
Yaqing Song Yaqing Song 1Xin Sun Xin Sun 2*Xiaowei Cai Xiaowei Cai 2Xi Liu Xi Liu 1
  • 1 School of Mathematics and Statistics, Hefei Normal University, Hefei, Anhui Province, China
  • 2 Anhui University of Finance and Economics, Bengbu, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    As a novel economic form, the digital economy plays an important role in promoting urban low-carbon sustainable development (LCSD). Based on panel data from 270 cities in China from 2011 to 2021, this study used principal component analysis and the global entropy weight method to calculate the level of digital economy development and LCSD as well as to empirically discuss any correlated effects and mechanisms. The research showed that the digital economy has significantly promoted urban LCSD and has become an important source for promoting green low-carbon development. The digital economy can indirectly promote LCSD by accelerating industrial structure upgrading and promoting technological innovation; Moreover, this promotion can show significant threshold characteristics with these factors. When industrial structure upgrading and technological innovation reach a certain threshold, the digital economy can further enhance urban LCSD. The promotion of the digital economy is positively influenced by marketization level and environmental regulation, and it exhibits distinct regional characteristics. During the critical period of economic development and transformation, the government must continuously promote the development of the digital economy, fully release its dividends on LCSD, and implement a differentiated digital development strategy to promote low-carbon economic development according to local conditions.

    Keywords: digital economy, low-carbon sustainable development, Industrial structure, technological innovation, threshold effect

    Received: 29 Apr 2024; Accepted: 03 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Song, Sun, Cai and Liu. 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: Xin Sun, Anhui University of Finance and Economics, Bengbu, China

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