Analysing the Effect of Energy Intensity on Carbon Emission Reduction in Beijing.

Beijing has experienced rapid economic development since the reforms and opening up. However, the traditional development model based on excessive energy consumption has posed great challenges to the ecological environment. To curb environmental degradation and achieve sustainable social development, Beijing has proposed to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. As an important indicator of energy consumption, it is necessary to clarify how energy intensity (EI) affects carbon emissions (CE) to achieve carbon neutrality in Beijing by 2050. This study first decomposes the drivers of CE in Beijing from 2010 to 2020 using the logarithmic mean Divisia index (LMDI) method and comparatively analyses the impact of EI on CE. Then, the spatial Dubin model (SDM) is used to analyse the spatial spillover effect of EI on CE at the regional level. Finally, the macro moderating role of economic development in the effect of EI on CE is analysed. The results show that the effect of EI has been the main driver of CE reduction in Beijing. Among the industrial sectors, manufacturing and transportation have had the greatest success in reducing CE through EI reduction. At the regional level, there is a spatial spillover effect of EI on CE, and the effect of carbon reduction through the spillover effect of EI is greater than the direct effect of EI. Economic factors have an enhanced moderating effect on the process of EI affecting CE, and this moderating effect has threshold properties.

The Impact of Green Technology Innovation on Carbon Emissions in the Context of Carbon Neutrality in China: Evidence from Spatial Spillover and Nonlinear Effect Analysis.

The Paris agreement is a unified arrangement for the global response to climate change and entered into force on 4 November 2016. Its long-term goal is to hold the global average temperature rise well below 2 °C. China is committed to achieving carbon neutrality by 2060 through various measures, one of which is green technology innovation (GTI). This paper aims to analyze the levels of GTI in 30 provinces in mainland China between 2001 and 2019. It uses the spatial econometric models and panel threshold models along with the slack based measure (SBM) and Global Malmquist-Luenberger (GML) index to analyze the spatial spillover and nonlinear effects of GTI on regional carbon emissions. The results show that GTI achieves growth every year, but the innovation efficiency was low. China's total carbon dioxide emissions were increasing at a marginal rate, but the carbon emission intensity was declining year by year. Carbon emissions were spatially correlated and show significant positive agglomeration characteristics. The spatial spillover of GTI plays an important role in reducing carbon dioxide emissions. In the underdeveloped regions in China, this emission reduction effect was even more significant.

Foreign Direct Investment's Impact on China's Economic Growth, Technological Innovation and Pollution.

In recent years, China has gradually become one of the countries with the largest levels of foreign direct investment (FDI). FDI has played a significant role in promoting Chinese economic development, and the FDI technology spillover effect is one of the core forces driving China towards reaching new growth milestones. Therefore, due to the country's interest in development, there is competition for FDI throughout China. However, the existing imperfect environmental protection system cannot prevent FDI from flowing into China's highly polluting and resource-intensive industrial chain, possibly causing serious environmental problems. Therefore, the topic of properly introducing foreign capital to promote development and effectively end China's current environmental pollution crisis has become a research focus. To explore FDI's impact on China's economic growth, technological innovation, and environmental pollution, we use Chinese provincial panel data for 2004-2016 to construct a dynamic panel simultaneous-equation model. Considering the interrelationships between the equations, we construct economic models of economic growth, technological innovation, and pollution emissions, and incorporate them into the same research system for generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation. Our results show that FDI has a significant and positive direct impact on China's economic growth and technological innovation, and can furthermore have a significant pull effect on the domestic economy through the backward spillover channel. At the same time, FDI has a direct and significant impact on the increase in regional waste-water discharge, while exhibiting a pollution halo effect on the emission of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) emissions directly. In addition, we observe "benign feedback mechanism" between technological innovation output and these three types of pollution, namely SO2 emission, COD emissions, and ammonia and nitrogen discharge.