Research On Performance Evaluation Of Low-carbon Governance And Governance Model Of Local Government

With the rapid growth of global economy, the problems of resources and environment destruction and climate change are increasingly serious. The strategy of low-carbon development has become an important part of the strategy of political, economic and social development in many countries. Chinese government actively undertook "the common but differentiated responsibilities" which always uphold by the international community, established the aim of low-carbon development, and added a series of low-carbon indicators in the framework of local government performance evaluation. So, how to grasp the characteristics of the low-carbon governance of local government; how to make good use of performance evaluation to evaluate the low-carbon governance performance of local government effectively; how to accurately determine the main factors influencing the performance of low-carbon governance of local government; how to use the performance evaluation to improve the performance of low-carbon governance of local government and innovation the governance model. All of these are key scientific problems of low-carbon governance performance evaluation theory and method of local government must be solved.However, the existing studies of performance evaluation of low-carbon governance of local government still have shortcomings. First, there is no specific index system of performance evaluation of low-carbon governance of local government, most of studies are taking resources and environment protection as a dimension in the government performance evaluation system, which is hard to accurately measure the low-carbon governance performance of local government. Secondly, there is little dynamic performance evaluation of low-carbon governance of local government, but usually performance will change over time and present a certain diversity and dynamic. In addition, scholars did not consider the nature differen ce among local governments when determine the benchmarking for the local government of poor performance. Thirdly, scholars tend to analyze how the external environment factors to influence the low-carbon governance performance of local government, while ignore the organization factors. Finally, the study of the low-carbon governance model of local government is still in its infancy.Therefore, systematically study the performance evaluation of low-carbon governance of local government, not only can make up the shortcomings of the existing evaluation methods and governance model in theory but also can build an effective evaluation system to promote the low-carbon governance model of local government to innovation, and to provide effective guidance and reference for local government. Which has important theoretical and practical significance to promote the implementation of China’s "green" development strategy.In this context, combining with low-carbon economy theory, governance theory, public goods theory, stakeholder theory, synergy theory, this paper defined the scope of "low-carbon governance of government", and cleared the values of performance evaluation of low-carbon governance of local government.And then, built the index system of the performance evaluation of low-carbon governance of local government in the theoretical framew ork of the low-carbon economy and government governance theory. Considering the characteristics of the low-carbon governance, this paper chose DEA cross efficiency evaluation method which shows the unique advantages in public administrations and organizati ons as the evaluation model and evaluated the performance of low-carbon governance of the 79 municipal governments in six central provinces. It was found that the governments which have good low-carbon governance performance did well in the industrial wastewater discharge standards, industrial waste removal, energy intensity, afforestation and economic development. The poor performance government can be evidenced by its high energy intensity and emissions intensity.Due to the low-carbon governance performance of local government will change over time and showed some diversity and dynamic. So, according to the general dynamic performance index, and considering the characteristics of the research object, combined with the cross efficiency evaluation m ethod and window analysis, this paper built the dynamic evaluation model and evaluated the performance of low-carbon governance of the 79 municipal governments in six central provinces from 2006 to 2012. It was found that the low-carbon performance of these local governments were gradually improved and the performance gap between the governments with relative good performance and relative poor performance was shrinking. In order to found the reference benchmark for the governments whose performance were relatively poor, this paper used k-means clustering method to find that the reference benchmark in different years changed greatly, which showed that finding the reference benchmark is also a dynamic process and can determine the direction of improvement on the basis of the combination of benchmark government in different periods.However, Low-carbon governance performance of local government was not only affected by the index of the performance evaluation of low-carbon governance of local government but also by a number of external environmental factors and organization factors. This paper used BP-MIV method to analyze how each index to influence the performance of low-carbon governance of the 79 municipal governments in six central provinces, and found that there were four main factors have great influence. They were industrial wastewater discharge compliance rate, industrial wastewater discharge per unit GDP, energy consumption per unit GDP and industrial waste gas emissions per unit GDP. And then, used panel Tobit regression model to analyze how the external environment factors and organizational factors to influence the performance of low-carbon governance of local government, and found that four organization factors, revenues level and population density were significantly related to the performance of low carbon governance of local government. Which provide effective guidance for local governments to improve the performance of low-carbon governance and governance model innovation.Finally, based on the analysis of low-carbon governance performance of local government and influencing factors, this paper proposed the solutions to improve low-carbon governance performance of local government. However, due to the special nature of low-carbon governance, local governments may be "free riders" in the process of performance improvement, it is difficult to improve the overall low-carbon governance performance. From the perspective of synergy governance, we study the co-evolution between the body of low-carbon governance. From the macro level, we build a synergy model of low-carbon governance of local government under the "organized" environment, which is important for local governments to improve performance of low-carbon governance.