Risk spillovers of carbon emissions in international trade: the role of disembodied technology communications

Carbon emission reduction is an important means of achieving climate policy goals. However, the literature has neglected consideration of the carbon emission reduction mechanism from the perspective of technology risk spillovers in international trade. To explore this mechanism, this paper expands the classical linear model of foreign trade technology risk spillovers into a nonlinear spatial Durbin model. We construct a novel technology risk spillover index to forecast the magnitude of carbon emissions in agricultural trade across different regions. To validate our model, we consider the dual connotation of the spatial diffusion of disembodied technology communication (DTC) to map the relationships between different geographic and economic regions that are adjacent. The results suggest that disembodied technology risk spillover could promote carbon emission reductions. Specifically, technology risk spillovers from agricultural trade reduce agricultural carbon emissions by 0.79–1.16% in the local region. Disembodied technology risk spillovers also reduce agricultural carbon emissions by 2.85–11.57% in geographically adjacent regions and 4.9% in economically adjacent regions. Based on these conclusions, this paper proposes improving the closed and backward situation of rural areas in China’s central and western regions, promoting the transition toward the high end of the global agricultural industry chain and developing productive agricultural services and the rural cultural tourism industry to expand rural employment channels and stabilize farmers’ income.