Affiliation:
1. School of Business, Qingdao University, Qingdao 266071, China
2. Shandong Guangxinda Asset Evaluation and Project Management Corporation, Qingdao 266000, China
Abstract
Under the “dual carbon” goal, the core issue at present is to improve the environment while ensuring economic development. As a result, green finance, that is a tool that integrates finance and environmental protection, has shown increasingly significant carbon reduction effects. With the panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2012 to 2021 being the research object, this study employs a spatial Durbin model to examine the impact of green finance on carbon emissions and further discusses its mechanism effects. The empirical results indicate the following: firstly, the development of green finance effectively suppresses carbon emissions; secondly, by decomposing the spatial effect of green finance on carbon emissions, it is found that green finance also reduces carbon emissions in neighboring regions due to the spillover effects; finally, green finance can suppress carbon emissions through technological innovation and industrial structure upgrading. Therefore, it is imperative to actively engage in practical work related to green finance, to establish a sound system for green finance, and simultaneously, to enhance cooperation among regions in terms of green finance, in order to fully leverage its role in suppressing carbon emissions.