Digital economy, energy efficiency, and carbon emissions: Evidence from provincial panel data in China

Improving energy efficiency and lowering carbon emissions are of great importance to realize the “dual carbon” goal of carbon peak and carbon neutrality. Digital economy is a new engine of economic development, but whether or how it affects energy efficiency and carbon emissions are unclear. Utilizing panel data of China's 30 provinces from 2012 to 2019, this study empirically explores the relationships among digital economy, energy efficiency, and carbon emissions. Meanwhile, from the perspective of energy efficiency, applying mediation models and panel threshold model, it analyzes the direct, indirect, and nonlinear influencing mechanisms of digital economy on carbon emissions. The results reflect that the development of digital economy in China intensifies carbon emissions. Energy efficiency serves as a vital partial mediator between the two. The enhancement of energy efficiency can lower carbon emissions. However, the development of digital economy is not conducive to improving energy efficiency, thereby, indirectly increasing carbon emissions. The mediating effect of energy efficiency accounts for 30.58 % of the total effect of digital economy on carbon emissions. Meanwhile, taking energy efficiency into account, the impact of digital economy on carbon emissions has a significant double-threshold effect and presents an N-shaped trend. [0.824, 0.912] is the optimal range of energy efficiency, within which the growth of the digital economy can empower carbon emission abatement to some extent. In addition, the expansion of population size, the coal-based energy consumption structure, and the industrial structure significantly increase carbon emissions. The improvements in living standards and environmental regulations can help to decrease carbon emissions, but the emission abatement effects are not significant. Those conclusions reveal the importance of optimizing the level and quality of digital economy and adopting differentiated digital economy development policies based on energy efficiency to achieve carbon emission reduction.