ANALYSING THE IMPACT OF GREEN FINANCE POLICY AND DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION ON REGIONAL ENERGY CARBON EMISSIONS UNDER LOW-CARBON DEVELOPMENT

Amid escalating climate challenges, the persistent rise in energy carbon emissions (ECE) poses a critical challenge for China's sustainable development.The concurrent advancement of digital transformation and green finance has fundamentally restructured manufacturing systems, offering novel pathways for emission mitigation.This study investigates the synergistic effects of green finance and digitalization on ECE reduction, yielding three principal findings: (1) Both green finance and digital transformation demonstrate statistically significant direct and spatial spillover effects, with the spillover effect of digitalization substantially exceeding its direct impact; (2) A comprehensive analysis reveals that green finance exerts significant inhibitory influences through direct, indirect, and total effects on ECE, while digital transformation manifests consistent negative coefficients across all effect dimensions; (3) Regional heterogeneity analysis indicates that eastern China exhibits robust significance in both contemporaneous and lagged green finance effects, whereas central and western regions show diminishing temporal significance.Digitalization significantly curbs local ECE in eastern and central regions, but displays non-significant positive correlation in western areas.These findings advance the digital-environmental research paradigm and provide empirical support for achieving China's dual carbon objectives.