A fixed effects regression and two-step system generalized method of moments (GMM) is used to analyze secondary data from the World Bank, covering 163 countries over the period from 2000 to 2016. The study tests the relationship between renewable energy, urbanization, and CO₂ emissions. The empirical results show that urbanization has an inverted U-shaped relationship with CO₂ emissions, while renewable energy consumption mitigates CO₂ emissions. If causal, a 1% increase in renewable energy use leads to a 1.2% decrease in CO₂ emissions. The results also show that the GDP per capita has an inverted U-shaped relationship with CO₂ emissions, confirming the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC). We also found that innovation, proxied by residents’ patents, has a non-linear effect on CO₂ emissions. As a policy implication, developing countries should increase the share of renewable energy in their total energy use, and promote innovative activities by increasing government spending on R&D.

As a new combination of finance and technology, fintech not only makes people's daily life more convenient but also brings new opportunities for firm growth. Yet, although multiple parties in society have benefited tremendously from the development of fintech, its actual impact on FTIE remains unclear. For this purpose, we adopted a two-way fixed-effect model and considered the data of A-share-listed companies from 2011 to 2019 to analyze the impact of fintech development on FTIE in China and its associated mechanism. We found that fintech development negatively affected FTIE by increasing business risks and debt pressures through risk transmission and regulatory arbitrage, respectively. This finding remains robust after using instrumental variable tests and adopting Poisson and Tobin regression models. Furthermore, such negative impacts are higher for firms in the eastern region, nonmanufacturing firms, and state-owned enterprises. Our findings contribute significantly to the literature on technological innovation and financial regulation by shedding light on the negative impacts of the dominating fintech development on FTIE.