Envisaging the carbon emissions efficiency of digitalization: The case of the internet economy for China

With the successful convening of the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) and the constraints of carbon neutrality targets, China faces an increasingly severe task of energy conservation, reducing emissions, and improving carbon emission efficiency (CEE). The development of the Internet economy provides a perfect opportunity for China to realize the coordinated development of the economy and low-carbon society. Based on China's provincial panel data from 2006 to 2017, this paper explores the relationship between the Internet economy and CEE by using the instrumental variable-generalized method of moments (IV-GMM) method. It also investigates the internal mechanism and heterogeneity analysis. The main results show that (1) the Internet economy positively affects CEE in China; in other words, a 1 % increase in Internet economy indicators will contribute to an increase of CEE indicators by 0.141 %; (2) the Internet economy indirectly affects CEE by increasing human capital, clean technological innovation, and the non-coal energy mix; and (3) there is a significant asymmetric relationship between the Internet economy and CEE, with the negative influence of the Internet economy on CEE being more significant in southern China. This paper also proposes some policy implications to help China achieve low-carbon social development.