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Digital infrastructure construction, diversified environmental regulation, and dual control of urban carbon emissions—quasi-natural experiment from “broadband China” strategy

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Abstract

This study used three batches of “broadband China” strategies (BCS) implemented from 2014 to 2016 as quasi-natural experiments (QE) to distinguish the level of urban digital infrastructure construction (DIC). Using 231 prefecture-level cities in China from 2011 to 2019 as research samples, a progressive differences-in-differences (DID) model was used to empirically test the relationship characteristics between DIC and urban carbon emission (CE) total and intensity. The results show that (1) DIC has a significant negative correlation with total carbon emissions (TCE) and carbon emission intensity (CI), which is conducive to the “dual control” of urban CE, which is still valid after the five robustness tests. (2) The mechanism test shows that the DIC is conducive to improving the level of formal environmental regulation (FER) and informal environmental regulation (IER) and strengthening the synergy between formal and informal environmental regulation (ER), so as to achieve “dual control” of carbon emissions, of which the synergy is the most significant, followed by FER. (3) In heterogeneity research findings, only the third batch of pilot projects can achieve “dual control” of CE, which has the advantage of latecomers. The “dual control” effect of carbon emissions in DIC is more significant in cities with higher levels of marketization and eastern cities. Therefore, DIC plays the role of “icing on the cake,” not “providing charcoal in the snow.”

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Funding

The authors acknowledge financial support from the project the third Xinjiang comprehensive scientific research project, “Investigation of clean energy and ecological environment assessment of energy and mineral development in the Tuha Basin,” project 5, “Investigation of national energy base construction and assessment of carbon emission reduction potential in the Tuha Basin” (SQ2021xjkk01800); Xinjiang University’s 2022 excellent doctoral student innovation project: carbon reduction and reduction in resource-based cities; research on the coordinated promotion mechanism of pollution, green expansion and growth (XJU2022BS006); Xinjiang University’s 2022 excellent doctoral student innovation project: analysis of spatiotemporal differentiation and driving factors of coupling synergy of pollution reduction, carbon reduction and green expansion (XJU2022BS007); Xinjiang University’s 2022 excellent doctoral student innovation project: research on the impact of carbon financial policy tools on the combined effects of economy and environment (XJU2022BS015); and Xinjiang University’s 2022 excellent doctoral student innovation project: scaling law of carbon reduction, pollution reduction and green expansion growth and its influencing factors (XJU2022BS010).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Economics and Management, Xinjiang University, Urumqi, 830047, China

    Dianyuan Ma, Hui Sun, XueChao Xia, Yan Zhao & Zedong Yang

  2. Center for Innovation Management, Xinjiang University, Urumqi, 830047, China

    Dianyuan Ma, Hui Sun, XueChao Xia, Yan Zhao & Zedong Yang

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  1. Dianyuan Ma
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  2. Hui Sun
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  3. XueChao Xia
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  4. Yan Zhao
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Contributions

Dianyuan Ma: conceptualization, project administration, writing, review, editing, writing original draft, formal analysis, data curation, software, and visualization. Hui Sun: writing original draft, writing, review, editing, formal analysis, validation, methodology, conceptualization, funding acquisition, and supervision. XueChao Xia: writing original draft, writing, review, and editing. Yan Zhao and Zedong Yang: document proofreading.

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Correspondence to Hui Sun.

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Highlights

• DIC can help achieve dual control of urban CE.

• The strength and synergy of diversified ER are important mechanism variables.

• DIC has the characteristics of a latecomer advantage.

• Analyzed the heterogeneity of geographical location and level of marketization.

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Ma, D., Sun, H., Xia, X. et al. Digital infrastructure construction, diversified environmental regulation, and dual control of urban carbon emissions—quasi-natural experiment from “broadband China” strategy. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 101280–101295 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-29484-8

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