Impact of Green Innovation Efficiency on Carbon Emission Reduction in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao GBA

Abstract

Climate change has become a global issue of general concern to human society. It is not only an environmental issue, but also a development issue. As the second largest economy in the world, China has adhered to its commitments in the Paris Agreement and formulated a series of autonomous action targets. In this context, scholars have done a lot of research focusing on carbon emission reduction, but have neglected the spatial correlation of carbon emission, and lack of research on carbon emission reduction in urban agglomerations. The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) has been at the forefront of China in terms of economy, politics, ecology, and civilization by taking advantage of the “one country, two systems” policy. This article innovatively proposes that there is a non-linear relationship between the efficiency of green innovation and the carbon emission intensity of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao GBA, and has passed quantitative verification. Based on the panel data of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao GBA from 2009 to 2019, we used the super-efficiency slacks-based measure (SBM) model to measure the efficiency of green innovation. We used the global Moran index and Theil index to discuss the spatial correlation of carbon emissions and regional differences in carbon emission intensity in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao GBA, respectively. Then, we used the threshold model to verify the nonlinear relationship between the efficiency of green innovation and the intensity of carbon emissions in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao GBA. The results of the study found that the green innovation efficiency of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao GBA is increasing overall, carbon emissions have a certain spatial correlation, and the correlation is low overall. The impact of green innovation efficiency on carbon emission intensity has a non-linear relationship and there is an “inverted U” pattern between the two, and there is an inflection point in green innovation efficiency. Based on this, this article proposes carbon emission reduction measures within a reasonable range, and looks forward to future research directions and complement the research deficiencies.

Does Human Capital Matter for China’s Green Growth?—Examination Based on Econometric Model and Machine Learning Methods

“…High-level human capital promotes green innovation [ 59 ]. Green innovation ( GI N ) will largely affect carbon emissions [ 61 ], affecting green economic development [ 63 ]. In this paper, green innovation is measured by the number of green invention patent applications in prefecture level cities.…”

“…However, existing studies have shown that the relationship between green innovation and GEE is often nonlinear. Chen and Huo [ 61 ] and Shi et al [ 62 ] argue that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between innovation and carbon emissions. Hu et al [ 63 ] finds that there is a U-shaped relationship between green innovation and green development.…”

“…However, due to the long cycle and high risk of scientific and technological innovation, early R&D investment may not be able to be converted into R&D results in time to play the role of driving the city’s green growth [ 35 ]. Moreover, since now company scale expansion and capital recycling have brought certain negative externality to the environmental system, the “rebound effect” of such negative externality is greater than the energy-saving effect brought by technological innovation [ 65 , 66 ], which will increase energy consumption and carbon emissions to some extent, and is not conducive to improving green economic performance [ 61 , 62 ]. Second, when the innovation level exceeds a certain threshold and reaches a high level, the early R&D investment is transformed into a real force to promote companies’ technological improvement and product iteration.…”

Effect of Scale and Structure Changes of China’s High-Carbon Industries on Regional Carbon Emissions

“…Pilot cities can use their advantages in green innovation technology and governance experience to drive the joint upgrading of related industries and share management experience with adjacent regions. Regions with large-scale high-carbon industries can learn from the development experience of pilot cities, improve their industrial technology innovation [38], optimize the structure of high-carbon industries, and move forward from traditional to high-end industries. At the same time, a regional carbon emission reduction cooperation mechanism can be established to achieve effective interregional docking in energy policies such as new energy technology R&D and energy conservation subsidies and promote the sharing of resources and low-carbon technologies among provinces.…”

Research on China's Environmental Governance Mode: Quality Driven or Quantity Driven?

“…The innovative behavior of enterprises is considered to be an important way to solve environmental pollution and cope with climate change (Lin et al, 2021), which can increase the proportion of clean energy use while reducing the waste of resources (Feng et al, 2021;Dong et al, 2022;Lin and Ma, 2022). In addition, enterprises can also improve the effect of EG by means of green transformation (Zhu et al, 2021) and improving the efficiency of total factor productivity Chen and Huo, 2021).…”