Fixed and mobile broadband penetration and CO2 emissions: evidence from OECD countries

The recent rapid increase in Internet data trafc and use of digital technologies— observed during the pandemic and forecasted as a consequence of the massive digital transition occurring in the world economies—are feeding concerns about the related possible negative environmental impacts, in terms of both energy consumption and Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions. We contribute to such debate by analysing the relation between two diferent digitalization dimensions, namely fxed and mobile broadband connections penetration, and CO2 emissions at the country level. Our paper provides empirical evidence, based on a panel of 35 OECD countries, that higher fxed and mobile broadband penetration levels are associated with lower levels of CO2 emissions, according to an Environmental Kuznets Curve-type relation. Moreover, we investigate whether the environmental efects of these two digitalization dimensions difer across high- and low-income OECD countries. By adopting fxed-efects models and fxed-efects two-stage least square estimators, the results, besides substantiating the Kuznet’s hypothesis in both groups of nations, confrm that higher fxed and mobile broadband penetration levels are associated to a reduction of CO2 emissions.