Research On Carbon Emissions Performance In The Context Of Economy-energy-environment Coordinated Development In China

It is important to assign tasks of carbon emission reduction by scientificallyevaluating emission performance of GHG, e.g. CO2. Under the desire for coordinateddevelopment of energy-economy-environment (3E) system in China, carbon emissionperformance indicators should be able to reflect the degree of coordinateddevelopment of3E scientifically and reasonably. Traditional carbon emissionperformance indicators ignore the substitution between production factors, and cannotaccurately mirror the real carbon emission performances in economic activities.Subsequently, under a total-factor framework, this paper firstly constructs anSBM-DEA model and an index of total-factor CO2emission performance (TFCPI) toinvestigate CO2emission performance and potential CO2emission reduction of29provinces in China during1997-2009. According to TFCPI and potential CO2emission reduction, the29provinces are divided into four groups by Ward’sClustering Method. Then, this paper respectively analyzes the changes on regionaldisparities of CO2emission performance in the east, middle, west, northeast, and theoverall area of China. Finally, this paper adopts the spatial panel data models toexplore the influential factors of carbon emission performance.The results show that China has experienced a continuing increase in CO2emission performance during the sample period. However, the regional disparities areapparently declining from the southeast coastal areas to the northwest inland areas.Hebei, Henan, Shandong, Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Anhui and Liaoning have the mostCO2emission mitigation potentiality. Fujian, Guangdong, Shanghai, Hainan andBeijing reach the highest development coordination degree between energy, economyand environment. There are both absolute and conditional convergence in the east,middle, west, northeast, and the overall area of China, which indicates that theregional disparities will mitigate with the passage of time. A region’s carbon emissionperformance is influenced by its adjacent areas positively. Opening up, energyconsumption structure, industrial structure, property right structure, governmentintervention, technology progress and energy price have significant influence oncarbon emission performance. Among them, poor technology and government intervention are the bottleneck factors to improve the whole China’s carbon emissionsperformance.