Education and its impact on renewable energy demand, carbon intensity, and green growth: do digital financial inclusion and environmental policy stringency matter in China

Various targets need to be accomplished before the dream of sustainable development comes true. Among these targets, increasing renewable energy demand, reducing carbon intensity, and achieving green growth are the most noticeable. Therefore, the present study focuses on capturing digital financial inclusion's impact on renewable energy demand, carbon intensity, and green growth in the presence of ICT trade and environmental policy stringency in China. To empirically estimate the model, we have applied ARDL covering the time span from 1995 to 2020. The results state that the estimated coefficients attached to education, ATMS, and environmental policy stringency are positively significant in the renewable energy and green growth model and negatively significant in the carbon intensity model. From these results, we confer that education, digital financial inclusion, and environmental policy stringency are good for increasing renewable energy demand, reducing carbon intensity, and achieving green growth in China. In the short run, some of the estimates are negative; hence, we conclude that the results are inconclusive. The results recommend some imperative policy suggestions.

Automated summary

This study focuses on the impact of digital financial inclusion on renewable energy demand, carbon intensity, and green growth in China, considering ICT trade and environmental policy stringency. The results suggest that education, digital financial inclusion, and environmental policy stringency have positive effects on increasing renewable energy demand and achieving green growth, while they have negative effects on reducing carbon intensity. However, the short-term effects remain inconclusive.