IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/eneeco/v127y2023ipas0140988323006102.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What is the role of green ICT innovation in lowering carbon emissions in China? A provincial-level analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Li, Yaya
  • Zhang, Yun

Abstract

Green information and communication technology (ICT) is key to attaining carbon neutrality and a low-carbon economy. Applying panel data of 30 provinces in China, this study explores the internal mechanism and heterogeneous effect of green ICT innovation at lowering carbon emissions (CE) in China. The results disclose the following. Green ICT innovation significantly reduces the nation's provincial carbon emission, and the results remain valid after endogenous treatment and robustness test. Furthermore, green ICT innovation and CE do not exhibit a U-shape relationship, indicating the absence of a rebound effect. Green ICT innovation has an energy-saving effect and a productivity effect, demonstrating that energy intensity and green total factor productivity play an intermediary role. A better ICT development foundation strengthens green ICT innovation's carbon reduction effect. Besides, the CE reduction effect has three-dimensional heterogeneity depending on different economic development levels, type of green ICT innovation, and different carbon emissions regions. Finally, based on these results, the paper offers policy implications.

Suggested Citation

  • Li, Yaya & Zhang, Yun, 2023. "What is the role of green ICT innovation in lowering carbon emissions in China? A provincial-level analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(PA).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:127:y:2023:i:pa:s0140988323006102
    DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2023.107112
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140988323006102
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.eneco.2023.107112?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lin, Boqiang & Zhu, Junpeng, 2021. "Impact of China's new-type urbanization on energy intensity: A city-level analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    2. Du, Gang & Yu, Meng & Sun, Chuanwang & Han, Zhao, 2021. "Green innovation effect of emission trading policy on pilot areas and neighboring areas: An analysis based on the spatial econometric model," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    3. Su, Chi Wei & Yue, Peiwen & Hou, Xinmeng & Dördüncü, Hazar, 2023. "Sustainable development through digital innovation: A new era for natural resource extraction and trade," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(PB).
    4. Jafar Hussain & Chien‐Chiang Lee, 2022. "A green path towards sustainable development: Optimal behavior of the duopoly game model with carbon neutrality instruments," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(6), pages 1523-1541, December.
    5. Li, Yaya & Zhu, Zhu & Guan, Yefeng & Kang, Yanfang, 2022. "Research on the structural features and influence mechanism of the green ICT transnational cooperation network," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 734-749.
    6. Wang, Wei-Zheng & Liu, Lan-Cui & Liao, Hua & Wei, Yi-Ming, 2021. "Impacts of urbanization on carbon emissions: An empirical analysis from OECD countries," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    7. Chen, Xia & Rahaman, Md Atikur & Murshed, Muntasir & Mahmood, Haider & Hossain, Md Afzal, 2023. "Causality analysis of the impacts of petroleum use, economic growth, and technological innovation on carbon emissions in Bangladesh," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 267(C).
    8. Jiban Khuntia & Terence J. V. Saldanha & Sunil Mithas & V. Sambamurthy, 2018. "Information Technology and Sustainability: Evidence from an Emerging Economy," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 27(4), pages 756-773, April.
    9. Su, Chi Wei & Liu, Fangying & Stefea, Petru & Umar, Muhammad, 2023. "Does technology innovation help to achieve carbon neutrality?," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 1-14.
    10. Grazia Cecere & Sascha Rexhäuser & Patrick Schulte, 2019. "From less promising to green? Technological opportunities and their role in (green) ICT innovation," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(1), pages 45-63, January.
    11. Ronald Bernstein & Reinhard Madlener, 2010. "Impact of disaggregated ICT capital on electricity intensity in European manufacturing," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(17), pages 1691-1695.
    12. Zhong, Mei-Rui & Cao, Meng-Yuan & Zou, Han, 2022. "The carbon reduction effect of ICT: A perspective of factor substitution," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 181(C).
    13. Cecere, Grazia & Corrocher, Nicoletta & Gossart, Cédric & Ozman, Muge, 2014. "Technological pervasiveness and variety of innovators in Green ICT: A patent-based analysis," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(10), pages 1827-1839.
    14. Qin, Meng & Su, Chi-Wei & Lobonţ, Oana-Ramona & Umar, Muhammad, 2023. "Blockchain: A carbon-neutral facilitator or an environmental destroyer?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 604-615.
    15. Lee, Chien-Chiang & Wang, Fuhao & Chang, Yu-Fang, 2023. "Towards net-zero emissions: Can green bond policy promote green innovation and green space?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    16. Li, Xinze & Zhang, Caiyun & Zhu, Huan, 2023. "Effect of information and communication technology on CO2 emissions: An analysis based on country heterogeneity perspective," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    17. Ibrahim D. Raheem & Aviral K. Tiwari & Daniel Balsalobre-lorente, 2019. "The Role of ICT and Financial Development on CO2 Emissions and Economic Growth," Working Papers of the African Governance and Development Institute. 19/058, African Governance and Development Institute..
    18. Nicola Jones, 2018. "How to stop data centres from gobbling up the world’s electricity," Nature, Nature, vol. 561(7722), pages 163-166, September.
    19. Su, Chi Wei & Shao, Xuefeng & Jia, Zhijie & Nepal, Rabindra & Umar, Muhammad & Qin, Meng, 2023. "The rise of green energy metal: Could lithium threaten the status of oil?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    20. Umar, Muhammad & Safi, Adnan, 2023. "Do green finance and innovation matter for environmental protection? A case of OECD economies," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    21. Yi, Ming & Liu, Yafen & Sheng, Mingyue Selena & Wen, Le, 2022. "Effects of digital economy on carbon emission reduction: New evidence from China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    22. Nicoletta Corrocher & Franco Malerba & Andrea Morrison, 2021. "Technological regimes, patent growth, and catching-up in green technologies [Global Innovation Systems—a conceptual framework for innovation dynamics in transnational contexts]," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 30(4), pages 1084-1107.
    23. Tang, Chang & Xu, Yuanyuan & Hao, Yu & Wu, Haitao & Xue, Yan, 2021. "What is the role of telecommunications infrastructure construction in green technology innovation? A firm-level analysis for China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    24. Barbieri, Nicolò & Marzucchi, Alberto & Rizzo, Ugo, 2020. "Knowledge sources and impacts on subsequent inventions: Do green technologies differ from non-green ones?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(2).
    25. Zhang, Chuanguo & Tan, Zheng, 2016. "The relationships between population factors and China's carbon emissions: Does population aging matter?," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 1018-1025.
    26. Nair, Mahendhiran & Pradhan, Rudra P. & Arvin, Mak B., 2020. "Endogenous dynamics between R&D, ICT and economic growth: Empirical evidence from the OECD countries," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    27. Avom, Désiré & Nkengfack, Hilaire & Fotio, Hervé Kaffo & Totouom, Armand, 2020. "ICT and environmental quality in Sub-Saharan Africa: Effects and transmission channels," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    28. Ricardo Vinuesa & Hossein Azizpour & Iolanda Leite & Madeline Balaam & Virginia Dignum & Sami Domisch & Anna Felländer & Simone Daniela Langhans & Max Tegmark & Francesco Fuso Nerini, 2020. "The role of artificial intelligence in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 11(1), pages 1-10, December.
    29. Xu, Le & Fan, Meiting & Yang, Lili & Shao, Shuai, 2021. "Heterogeneous green innovations and carbon emission performance: Evidence at China's city level," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    30. Hussain, Jafar & Lee, Chien-Chiang & Chen, Yongxiu, 2022. "Optimal green technology investment and emission reduction in emissions generating companies under the support of green bond and subsidy," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 183(C).
    31. Ben Lahouel, Béchir & Taleb, Lotfi & Ben Zaied, Younes & Managi, Shunsuke, 2021. "Does ICT change the relationship between total factor productivity and CO2 emissions? Evidence based on a nonlinear model," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    32. Jin, Gang & Yu, Binbin & Shen, Kunrong, 2021. "Domestic trade and energy productivity in China: An inverted U-shaped relationship," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    33. Lee, Chien-Chiang & Yuan, Zihao & Lee, Chi-Chuan & Chang, Yu-Fang, 2022. "The impact of renewable energy technology innovation on energy poverty: Does climate risk matter?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    34. Lee, Chien-Chiang & He, Zhi-Wen & Yuan, Zihao, 2023. "A pathway to sustainable development: Digitization and green productivity," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    35. Sun, Xianming & Xiao, Shiyi & Ren, Xiaohang & Xu, Bing, 2023. "Time-varying impact of information and communication technology on carbon emissions," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    36. Li, Yaya & Zhang, Yuru & Pan, An & Han, Minchun & Veglianti, Eleonora, 2022. "Carbon emission reduction effects of industrial robot applications: Heterogeneity characteristics and influencing mechanisms," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    37. Du, Kerui & Li, Jianglong, 2019. "Towards a green world: How do green technology innovations affect total-factor carbon productivity," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 240-250.
    38. Zhang, Jing & Liang, Xiong-jian, 2012. "Promoting green ICT in China: A framework based on innovation system approaches," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(10), pages 997-1013.
    39. Zhou, Xiaoyong & Zhou, Dequn & Wang, Qunwei & Su, Bin, 2019. "How information and communication technology drives carbon emissions: A sector-level analysis for China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 380-392.
    40. Vu, Khuong & Hanafizadeh, Payam & Bohlin, Erik, 2020. "ICT as a driver of economic growth: A survey of the literature and directions for future research," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(2).
    41. Hu, Jinyan & Wang, Kai-Hua & Su, Chi Wei & Umar, Muhammad, 2022. "Oil price, green innovation and institutional pressure: A China's perspective," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    42. Lee, Chien-Chiang & Qin, Shuai & Li, Yaya, 2022. "Does industrial robot application promote green technology innovation in the manufacturing industry?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 183(C).
    43. Lang, Qiaoqi & Ma, Feng & Mirza, Nawazish & Umar, Muhammad, 2023. "The interaction of climate risk and bank liquidity: An emerging market perspective for transitions to low carbon energy," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Liu, Jiasong & Zhu, Jingyi, 2024. "The impact of foreign participation on risk-taking in Chinese commercial banks: The co-governance role of equity checks and foreign supervision," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    2. Zheng, ShiYong & Liu, Kang & Li, Yuming & Li, Biqing & Usman, Ahmed, 2024. "How does hydrogen energy technology help to achieve carbon neutrality targets?," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 227(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Li, Yaya & Zhu, Zhu & Guan, Yefeng & Kang, Yanfang, 2022. "Research on the structural features and influence mechanism of the green ICT transnational cooperation network," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 734-749.
    2. Zhang, Wei & Liu, Xuemeng & Wang, Die & Zhou, Jianping, 2022. "Digital economy and carbon emission performance: Evidence at China's city level," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 165(C).
    3. Wang, Jianda & Dong, Kangyin & Dong, Xiucheng & Taghizadeh-Hesary, Farhad, 2022. "Assessing the digital economy and its carbon-mitigation effects: The case of China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    4. Khan, Yasir & Hassan, Taimoor & Guiqin, Huang & Nabi, Ghulam, 2023. "Analyzing the impact of natural resources and rule of law on sustainable environment: A proposed policy framework for BRICS economies," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 86(PA).
    5. Xie, Xin & Liu, Yufeng & Jiang, Xiaoxi & Wang, Zi Xuan, 2024. "Natural resources utilization, ICT growth, and renewable energy consumption: Pathways to sustainable development in China," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    6. Li, Yaya & Cobbinah, Joana & Abban, Olivier Joseph & Veglianti, Eleonora, 2023. "Does green manufacturing technology innovation decrease energy intensity for sustainable development?," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 1010-1025.
    7. Lee, Chien-Chiang & Yan, Jingyang, 2024. "Will artificial intelligence make energy cleaner? Evidence of nonlinearity," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 363(C).
    8. Wang, Lianghu & Shao, Jun, 2023. "Digital economy, entrepreneurship and energy efficiency," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 269(C).
    9. Tang, Chang & Xue, Yan & Wu, Haitao & Irfan, Muhammad & Hao, Yu, 2022. "How does telecommunications infrastructure affect eco-efficiency? Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in China," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    10. Sun, Yanpeng & Song, Yuru & Long, Chi & Qin, Meng & Lobonţ, Oana-Ramona, 2023. "How to improve global environmental governance? Lessons learned from climate risk and climate policy uncertainty," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 1666-1676.
    11. Lee, Chien-Chiang & Qin, Shuai & Li, Yaya, 2022. "Does industrial robot application promote green technology innovation in the manufacturing industry?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 183(C).
    12. Zhang, Weike & Fan, Hongxia & Zhao, Qiwei, 2023. "Seeing green: How does digital infrastructure affect carbon emission intensity?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(PB).
    13. Sun, Hongye & Kim, Giseung, 2021. "The composite impact of ICT industry on lowering carbon intensity: From the perspective of regional heterogeneity," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    14. Bai, Ling & Guo, Tianran & Xu, Wei & Liu, Yaobin & Kuang, Ming & Jiang, Lei, 2023. "Effects of digital economy on carbon emission intensity in Chinese cities: A life-cycle theory and the application of non-linear spatial panel smooth transition threshold model," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 183(C).
    15. Raihan, Asif, 2023. "Economy-energy-environment nexus: The role of information and communication technology towards green development in Malaysia," Innovation and Green Development, Elsevier, vol. 2(4).
    16. Xu, Qiong & Zhong, Meirui & Li, Xin, 2022. "How does digitalization affect energy? International evidence," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    17. Pan, Minjie & Zhao, Xin & lv, Kangjuan & Rosak-Szyrocka, Joanna & Mentel, Grzegorz & Truskolaski, Tadeusz, 2023. "Internet development and carbon emission-reduction in the era of digitalization: Where will resource-based cities go?," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    18. Ramzan, Muhammad & Abbasi, Kashif Raza & Salman, Asma & Dagar, Vishal & Alvarado, Rafael & Kagzi, Muneza, 2023. "Towards the dream of go green: An empirical importance of green innovation and financial depth for environmental neutrality in world's top 10 greenest economies," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    19. Feng, Yuan & Chen, Zhi & Nie, Changfei, 2023. "The effect of broadband infrastructure construction on urban green innovation: Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 581-598.
    20. Li, Ge & Wen, Huwei, 2023. "The low-carbon effect of pursuing the honor of civilization? A quasi-experiment in Chinese cities," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 343-357.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:127:y:2023:i:pa:s0140988323006102. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eneco .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.