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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Environmental Economics and Management
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2024.1437756
This article is part of the Research Topic Urban Carbon Emissions and Anthropogenic Activities View all 4 articles

Examining the Impact of Fintech and Green Finance on Low-Carbon Urban Development: An Empirical Analysis of Citi es in the Yangtze River Economic Belt

Provisionally accepted
wenjie cui wenjie cui junying chen junying chen yutian fu yutian fu Junzhi Fang Junzhi Fang *
  • Pan Asia Business School, Yunnan Normal University, Kunming, China

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

    Urban decarbonization is an imperative strategy for achieving the "dual-carbon" goa l and fostering sustainable development. The concurrent implementation of financial technology an d green finance constitutes a pivotal measure to accelerate urban decarbonization. By examining th e synergistic mechanism through which financial technology and green finance drive urban decarb onization, this study utilizes data from 108 prefecture-level cities within the Yangtze River Econom ic Belt spanning from 2010 to 2021. Employing a comprehensive array of methodologies, includin g coupling coordination models, kernel density estimation, spatial autocorrelation analysis, and eco nometric modeling, this paper empirically investigates the temporal and spatial dynamics of this sy nergy and its impact on urban decarbonization. The study reveals the following key findings: (1) T he synergistic development of fintech and green finance within the Yangtze River Economic Belt h as progressed from a barely coordinated state to a moderately coordinated one, characterized prima rily by "high-high" and "low-high" agglomerations, and exhibiting significant positive spatial auto correlation; (2) The synergistic development of fintech and green finance markedly enhances urba n decarbonization, with notable regional disparities in effect strength, being most pronounced in th e downstream regions of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, followed by the middle reaches, and le ast in the upper reaches; (3) Urban industrialization and green technological innovation exert firstorder and second-order threshold effects, respectively, on advancing urban decarbonization synergi stically, indicating incremental marginal influences. Building on these conclusions, the paper prop oses policy recommendations aimed at establishing an innovative green financial system, fostering a synergistic mechanism for urban decarbonization, promoting the advancement of new industriali zation, and enhancing green technological innovation.

    Keywords: green finance, Financial technology, Decarbonization of cities, Coupling analysis, Green technology innovation

    Received: 24 May 2024; Accepted: 16 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 cui, chen, fu 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: Junzhi Fang, Pan Asia Business School, Yunnan Normal University, Kunming, 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.