How does digital economy affect the relationship between renewable energy and CO2 emissions?

While existing literature has separately examined renewable energy and digital economy impacts on CO 2 emissions, their interactive relationship remains underexplored. This study investigates the moderating role of the digital economy in the relationship between renewable energy consumption and CO2 emissions, framed within the Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis Using a dynamic threshold panel regression model on a sample of 63 countries (2003–2020). The results demonstrate that renewable energy significantly lowers CO2 emissions. Crucially, this effect is 3.14 times stronger when the digital economy surpasses a threshold level, indicating its catalytic role in enhancing renewable energy's decarbonization potential. The results robustly validate the EKC hypothesis and show that human capital, energy price, Paris agreement and digitalization reduce CO 2 emissions, whereas fossil fuel reliance, population density, industrial structure and lagged emissions exacerbate them. These findings highlight the synergistic potential of digital and green transitions in accelerating climate mitigation strategies.