Exploring the Relationship Between Digital Technology and Carbon Unlocking Capacity in Chinese Coal-Based Cities

Zhenling Chen, Xueting Wang, Xiaoyan Niu and Yu Hao

Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, 2025, vol. 61, issue 15, 4945-4959

Abstract: This paper examines the causal effects of digital technology on carbon unlocking capability, employing panel data from coal-based cities in China. We construct a theoretical framework to elucidate the intrinsic link between digital technology and the three core dimensions of carbon unlocking—fiscal, industrial, and asset—and analyze the direct, mediating, and threshold effects of digital technology. The results show that: (1) Digital technology significantly improves fiscal and industrial carbon unlocking but has a weaker effect on the asset dimension. (2) Both economic development and scientific-technological progress serve as critical threshold variables in the carbon unlocking mechanism enabled by digital technology. (3) Alleviating fiscal pressure, upgrading the industrial structure, and promoting technological innovation are the primary channels through which digital technology unlocks carbon constraints.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/1540496X.2025.2529388

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