Advancing low-carbon economies in the Persian Gulf: the role of clean energy, industry 4.0, and fintech

IF 7 3区环境科学与生态学 Q2 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES

Carbon Balance and Management Pub Date : 2026-04-24 Epub Date: 2026-06-23 DOI:10.1186/s13021-026-00435-3

Zilian Li, Guixian Tian, Bakhtawer Ayub, Shagufta Tariq Khan

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

The international move towards a low-carbon economy is an immediate necessity especially to the Persian Gulf region that is confronted with the dual role of disengaging its economies out of the reliance on fossil fuel and expanding the energy needs. Although technological innovation may facilitate this change, the region experiences intense challenges of scaling green solutions. This paper examines how the three variables of clean energy, Industry 4.0, and FinTech contributed to the process of substituting the economy of high carbon with the low-carbon economy of the Persian Gulf through a panel dataset of 1990 to 2024. With the help of generalized method of moments (GMM) regression, we discover that clean energy, Industry 4.0 and FinTech are important factors of abatement, but the implementation of green technology has a paradox: it is currently negatively correlated with carbon reduction, which is explained by low levels of adoption that are not enough to obtain economies of scale. We conclude that to make a low-carbon future a reality, there is a need to go beyond technology acquisition to policy-based large-scale investment, and regional integration.

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推进波斯湾低碳经济：清洁能源、工业4.0和金融科技的作用。

国际社会迫切需要向低碳经济迈进，尤其是波斯湾地区，该地区面临着经济摆脱对化石燃料依赖和扩大能源需求的双重角色。尽管技术创新可能促进这一变化，但该地区在推广绿色解决方案方面面临着严峻挑战。本文通过1990年至2024年的面板数据集，考察了清洁能源、工业4.0和金融科技这三个变量对波斯湾低碳经济取代高碳经济的作用。利用广义矩量法（GMM）回归，我们发现清洁能源、工业4.0和金融科技是减排的重要因素，但绿色技术的实施存在一个悖论：目前它与碳减排呈负相关，这可以解释为采用水平低，不足以获得规模经济。我们的结论是，要实现低碳未来，需要从技术获取转向基于政策的大规模投资和区域一体化。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Carbon Balance and Management Environmental Science-Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law

CiteScore

7.60

自引率

0.00%

发文量

审稿时长

14 weeks

期刊介绍： Carbon Balance and Management is an open access, peer-reviewed online journal that encompasses all aspects of research aimed at developing a comprehensive policy relevant to the understanding of the global carbon cycle. The global carbon cycle involves important couplings between climate, atmospheric CO2 and the terrestrial and oceanic biospheres. The current transformation of the carbon cycle due to changes in climate and atmospheric composition is widely recognized as potentially dangerous for the biosphere and for the well-being of humankind, and therefore monitoring, understanding and predicting the evolution of the carbon cycle in the context of the whole biosphere (both terrestrial and marine) is a challenge to the scientific community. This demands interdisciplinary research and new approaches for studying geographical and temporal distributions of carbon pools and fluxes, control and feedback mechanisms of the carbon-climate system, points of intervention and windows of opportunity for managing the carbon-climate-human system. Carbon Balance and Management is a medium for researchers in the field to convey the results of their research across disciplinary boundaries. Through this dissemination of research, the journal aims to support the work of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) and to provide governmental and non-governmental organizations with instantaneous access to continually emerging knowledge, including paradigm shifts and consensual views.