With the deteriorating ecological environment, green technological innovation (GTI) has become an effective way to strengthen environmental protection and promote economic development. Based on the 2011–2019 panel data of 30 provinces in China, this study constructs a spatial Durbin model to examine the spatial spillover effect of environmental regulation and digital finance on green technological innovation. Meanwhile, a moderating effect model and threshold effect model are employed to explore the function of digital finance in terms of the impact of environmental regulation on green technological innovation. The empirical results show that: 1) environmental regulation has significantly promoted local GTI, green invention patents (GIP) and green utility model patents (GUP), while having had negative spatial spillover effects on those three things in neighboring regions. Digital finance promotes GTI and GIP in both local and neighboring areas, but digital finance’s direct and spatial spillover effects on GUP are not significant. 2) A regional analysis shows that different intensities of environmental regulation and different digital finance levels in different regions lead to the heterogeneity of green technological innovation’s response to them. 3) Digital finance produces a positive moderating effect on environmental regulation affecting GTI and GIP in local and neighboring regions. However, digital finance’s moderating effect in terms of the influence of environmental regulation on GUP is not significant. 4) When digital finance reaches a certain threshold, environmental regulation will have a stronger role in promoting GTI. Therefore, to improve regional green technology innovation and environmental governance, the government should strengthen the integration of digital technology and financial services, and promote the construction of environmental supervision systems and green innovation policy systems.

Green finance stimulus plan has become an important tool for environmental governance in the post-COVID-19 era. This paper investigates the emission reduction effect and impact mechanism of green finance (GF). The empirical results indicate that GF reduces environmental pollution. This reduction effect is attributed to a promotion in green innovation and industrial upgrading. The emission reduction effect of GF reflects the threshold characteristics. Specifically, stricter environmental regulation increases the inhibitory effect of GF on pollution

Improving green energy efficiency (GEE) and promoting green economic transformation are important goals for China to achieve sustainable economic development in the post-COVID-19 era. Based on panel data of 27 manufacturing industries in China, this paper uses GMM model and threshold model to study the impact of environmental regulation and technological innovation on green energy efficiency. Our findings show that technological innovation promotes green energy efficiency in both pollution-intensive and clean industries, and its promotion effect is more pronounced in pollution-intensive industries. Environmental regulation not only directly improves the green energy efficiency of polluting industries and clean industries, but also plays a positive intermediary role between technology and green energy efficiency. The impact of technological innovation on GEE has a threshold effect of environmental regulation. When environmental regulation did not cross the threshold, technological innovation does not significantly promote GEE. The promotion effect of technological innovation on GEE will increase with the strengthening of environmental supervision. Therefore, the government should formulate reasonable environmental regulations according to the industry heterogeneity to vigorously promote the green energy efficiency of the manufacturing industry.