Does modernization affect carbon dioxide emissions? A panel data analysis

Highlights: • The impacts of modernization on carbon dioxide emissions were investigated. • Five modernization indexes were developed based on a comprehensive indicator system. • Industrialization and agricultural modernization increased carbon dioxide emissions. • Informatization and urbanization had positive impacts on carbon dioxide emissions. • Ecological modernization exerted a negative impact on carbon dioxide emissions. -- Abstract: Modernization refers to the general trend of developmental progress that occurs within human societies. We now know that global warming, a result of carbon dioxide emissions, severely threatens the sustainability of human society. It is therefore of significant theoretical and practical implications that the scientific community more thoroughly investigate the impacts of modernization on CO₂ emissions. Surprisingly, only a limited number of studies have addressed this topic previously. As the world's largest developing economy and carbon emitter, China faces the dual challenge of peaking carbon emissions by 2030 while realizing basic modernization by 2035. With the purpose of identifying the implications of China's 2035 modernization goal for its 2030 emission peak goal, this study explored the effects of modernization on carbon dioxide emissions in China. Using a comprehensive indicator system, five modernization indexes—addressing industrialization, agricultural modernization, informatization, urbanization, and ecological modernization—were estimated, along with carbon dioxide emissions, for the period 1997–2016, for 30 Chinese provinces. Panel data modeling was then used to examine the impacts of the five modernization indexes on CO₂ emissions in China. The results demonstrate that industrialization, agricultural modernization, informatization, and urbanization exerted positive effects on CO₂ emissions during the study period, suggesting these aspects of modernization led to increased carbon dioxide emissions. A negative correlation between ecological modernization and carbon dioxide emission was identified, indicating that ecological modernization helped to abate CO₂ emissions. The findings emerging from this study hold significant implications for China's policy makers in promoting decarbonization, suggesting the utility of pursuing new-type industrialization, developing organic agriculture and eco-agriculture, popularizing electronic equipment with low power dissipation, building low-carbon cities, and promoting the ecology-oriented transformation of the modernization model.