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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Environmental Economics and Management
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2024.1490657
This article is part of the Research Topic Climate Risk and Green and Low-Carbon Transformation: Economic Impact and Policy Response View all articles

The role of green and digital technology convergence on carbon emission reduction: Evidence from China

Provisionally accepted
Jing Hu Jing Hu 1Qinghui Sun Qinghui Sun 2Wenjing Wang Wenjing Wang 3*
  • 1 Renmin University of China, Beijing, Beijing Municipality, China
  • 2 Dongbei University of Finance and Economics, Dalian, Liaoning Province, China
  • 3 Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing, China

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

    Green technology has received continuous attention and facing challenges of transformation because of the growing environmental concern, especially the carbon emissions resulting in global warming. In the Industry 4.0 era, green technology transforms into smart green technology benefits from the convergence with digital technologies. However, little research investigates the role of green and digital technology convergence (GDC) on carbon emission reduction. This study proposes a novel measurement of the GDC level of enterprise based on the network method and examines its pattern and dynamic. Moreover, we empirically analyze the impact of GDC on carbon emission reduction. Results show that GDC has a significant carbon reduction effect. Moreover, GDC reduces enterprises' carbon emissions by improving green innovation quality. Furthermore, an enterprise's technology convergence capability moderates the focal relationship. The heterogeneity analysis results reveal that the carbon reduction effect of GDC is stronger in large, state-owned, non-labor-intensive and heavypollution enterprises. The findings contribute to a better understanding of the fusion of greening and digitalization and provide useful insights for sustainable development policy-making.

    Keywords: green technology, Digital technology, Technology convergence, Carbon emission reduction, social network analysis

    Received: 03 Sep 2024; Accepted: 15 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Hu, Sun and Wang. 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: Wenjing Wang, Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing, 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.