Climate Risk Inhibits Agricultural Technology Innovation: Evidence from Chinese Cities

Understanding how climate risk impedes agricultural technology innovation, along with its underlying mechanisms, is critical for promoting high-quality agricultural development. Utilizing a panel dataset of 223 prefecture-level cities in China from 2005 to 2023, this study employs a fixed effects panel OLS estimator with city and year fixed effects to systematically examine the impact of climate risk on agricultural technology innovation. The findings indicate that climate risk significantly inhibits agricultural technology innovation, with a baseline coefficient of −1.462 that is statistically significant at the 1% level. These findings remain robust after addressing endogeneity concerns and applying Double Machine Learning (DML). Heterogeneity analysis reveals that this inhibitory effect is weaker in plain regions, major grain-producing areas, and regions with advanced digital economies. Mechanistically, climate risk suppresses agricultural technology innovation by reducing capital supply and dampening market demand. Furthermore, logistics capacity, knowledge accumulation, and human capital mobility can mitigate this negative impact. Additional analysis indicates that climate risk also negatively affects innovation quality, collaborative synergy, and green transition, albeit to a lesser extent than its impact on overall innovation levels. Within green innovation, climate risk exerts a stronger inhibitory effect on ecological-enhancing innovation than on pollution-reducing innovation.