Breakthrough low-carbon technological innovation (BLCTI) is a critical driver of sustainable economic and social development, but its impact on corporate carbon emissions (CCE) is underexplored. This study develops a theoretical model of the nonlinear relationship between BLCTI and CCE based on the innovation process. This study uses data from Chinese A-share listed manufacturing firms between 2012 and 2022 and empirically examines this relationship. The results reveal that: (1) BLCTI exhibits an inverted U-shaped effect on CCE, indicating that when innovations have limited scale and commercialization, they may actually increase emissions, a risk that warrants caution from both firms and policymakers; (2) higher levels of artificial intelligence adoption, ESG ratings, and industry competition shift the inverted U-shaped curve’s turning point downward and to the left, accelerating the carbon-reduction effects of breakthrough innovations; (3) the inverted U-shaped relationship holds only for non-high-energy-consuming manufacturers, non-state-owned enterprises, firms with records of environmental penalties, and during the period of 2017–2022. These findings offer important insights for enhancing the carbon mitigation effectiveness of BLCTI.
Yuan et al. (Thu,) studied this question.