数字化会带来气候意识吗？跨国面板数据分析

ADB Economics Working Paper Series Does Digitalization Lead to Climate Awareness? Md. Bokhtiar Hasan, Md. Tapan Mahmud,Gazi Salah Uddin, Ali Ahmed, Donghyun Park,and John Beirne Md. Bokhtiar Hasan (bokhtiar_bank@yahoo.com) is anassociate professor at the University of Nizwa, Omanand a full professor at the Islamic University, Bangladesh.Md. Tapan Mahmud (mahmud.tapan@bup.edu.bd)is an associate professor at Bangladesh University ofProfessionals. Gazi Salah Uddin (gazi.salah.uddin@liu.se)and Ali Ahmed (ali.ahmed@liu.se) are professors No. 821 | November 2025 TheADB Economics Working Paper Seriespresents research in progress to elicit commentsand encourage debate on development issuesin Asia and the Pacific. The views expressedare those of the authors and do not necessarily Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 IGO license (CC BY 3.0 IGO) © 2025 Asian Development Bank6 ADB Avenue, Mandaluyong City, 1550 Metro Manila, Philippines Some rights reserved. Published in 2025. ISSN 2313-6537 (print), 2313-6545 (PDF)Publication Stock No. WPS250471-2DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.22617/WPS250471-2 The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views and policiesof the Asian Development Bank (ADB) or its Board of Governors or the governments they represent. ADB does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this publication and accepts no responsibility for anyconsequence of their use. The mention of specific companies or products of manufacturers does not imply that they By making any designation of or reference to a particular territory or geographic area in this document, ADB does notintend to make any judgments as to the legal or other status of any territory or area. This publication is available under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 IGO license (CC BY 3.0 IGO)https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/. By using the content of this publication, you agree to be boundby the terms of this license. For attribution, translations, adaptations, and permissions, please read the provisions This CC license does not apply to non-ADB copyright materials in this publication. If the material is attributedto another source, please contact the copyright owner or publisher of that source for permission to reproduce it. Please contact pubsmarketing@adb.org if you have questions or comments with respect to content, or if you wishto obtain copyright permission for your intended use that does not fall within these terms, or for permission to use ABSTRACT Climate change, currently one of the most pressing challenges, requires increased publicawarenessand decisive action to support effective mitigation efforts.Comprehendingdigitalization’s potential role in shaping public understanding of climate-related issues hasbecomea progressively important area of study.Against this backdrop,we undertake apioneering attempt to examine how digitalization influences climate change awareness acrossdiverse countries. To capture the multifaceted nature of digitalization, we construct a digitalizationindex, applying principal component analysis. Leveraging an annual panel dataset encompassing65 countries over 2005–2020, our study applies several econometric techniques: panel-corrected 1. INTRODUCTION Climate change casts a long shadow over the 21st century, posing serious threats tonatural ecosystems and human societies. In recent years, the world has experienced anincreasing number of climate-related disruptions, such as extreme weather events, rising globaltemperatures, and changes in biodiversity. These shifts have far-reaching economic, social, andenvironmental implications (IPCC, 2022). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC) emphasizes the urgency of immediate and significant reductions in greenhouse gas Thisstudy delves into the potential role of digitalization—a broad and evolvingphenomenon encompassing internet access, mobile technologies, and digital communicationplatforms—in shaping public awareness and understanding of climate change. Digitalization hasa vast potential to transform how climate-related information is shared and consumed byfacilitating access to information, enabling real time communication, spreading information rapidly As discussed in the literature review (Section 2), previous research has primarily focusedon environmental awareness as a precursor to climate change awareness and attempted to investigating climate change awareness is a more recent development. Early studies have Furthermore, the burgeoning role of digitalization in shaping public opinion and behaviorin the context of climate change awareness has received scant to no attention. Existing researchalso often employs narrow proxies for digitalization, such as internet usage, broadband access, In light of these gaps, our study intends to explore the impact of digitalization on climatechange awareness across diverse countries. Additionally, we account for several critic