Research On Fossil Energy Saving And Emissions Reduction Performance From An International Perspective

Climate change,which is mainly caused by CO₂ emissions from fossil energy combustion,has been exceedingly paid attention by countries.Based on data envelopment analysis,this paper employs a non-radial directional distance function?DDF?and metafrontier approach to study fossil energy saving and emissions reduction performance of countries,which can not only reveal current situations for fossil energy use in countries,but also provide theoretical basis and policy guarantee for global climate change mitigation.In the first place,energy environmental and non-radial Malmquist indexes are proposed employing a non-radial DDF to measure fossil energy saving and emissions reduction performance,and change in performance,respectively.An empirical study in 2002-2011of 26 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries and BRIC countries?Brazil,Russia,India,and China?is performed,with the following outcomes:clean energy input should be regarded as an indicator for measuring performance,which will be underestimated for most countries regardless of this input;there is no significant correlation between the proportion of clean energy consumption and fossil energy saving and emissions reduction performance,which indicates that countries should also improve energy saving technologies and management while developing clean energy;in the study period,there is no obvious reduction in the gap for technologies and management among countries,implying that the diffusion of advanced technologies and management is unsatisfying.Furthermore,considering technology heterogeneous among countries,this paper builds metafrontier model based on the non-radial DDF to decompose fossil energy saving and emissions reduction performance into managerial and technical performance.An empirical study of 76 countries in 2011 is conducted,with the following outcomes:clean energy development should be regarded as an indicator for distinguishing technology heterogeneous among countries;there is a significantly positive correlation between technical performance and economic development,and between technical performance and clean energy development;there exists an obvious variation in managerial performance for countries in each group mainly because of different relationships between supply and demand for fossil energy.Finally,some policy recommendations for better fossil energy saving and CO₂emissions reduction are proposed according to research results.