Abstract
This paper presents a comparative analysis of the technology gap, energy efficiency, and CO2 emission performance of the agglomerated cities in Eastern and Central China and South Korea under economic heterogeneity. The potential reductions of energy and CO2 emission are estimated from agglomerated city perspectives. The global meta-frontier non-radial direction distance function is used to conduct an empirical analysis of agglomerated cities among Eastern, Central China and South Korea. The results show the potential reduction of 7.58 billion tons of CO2 emissions in Korea and another potential reduction of 1930.62 toe energy for the research period in China, if Korea and China proactively collaborate with each other. The empirical results conclude several unique findings and their implications. First, there are significant differences between the Chinese and Korean cities, in energy efficiency, CO2 emission performance, and meta-technology gaps. Korean cities play a leading role at benchmarking efficiency level with meta-frontier technology. Second, there is no significant difference between total-factor and single-factor performance indexes in the Korean cities, because South Korea requires large capital stocks to replace energy in the production process. However, the opposite is true for Eastern and Central China cities. Finally, there is huge potential for the Chinese cities to reduce energy and CO2 emissions by “catching up” internally as well as by the collaborative efforts with Korean cities.
Highlights
Since 2010, China is the world’s largest energy consumer
The global meta-frontier non-radial directional distance function (GMNDDF) in this paper refers to the data for all sample cities from 2009 to 2013 as different decision-making unit (DMU), and the 285 sample data points are mixed together to form a common meta-frontier and measure the efficiency
We found that the average for GTCPI and Group-Frontier Total-Factor Energy Performance Index (GTEPI) values shows an uptrend between 2009 and 2012, but it shows a mild downtrend in the year 2013, which is consistent with results obtained from other research, such as Lee and Choi (2018) [17]
Summary
Since 2010, China is the world’s largest energy consumer. According to BP (2018) [1], China’s primary energy consumption reached 3132.2 million toe in 2017, accounting for 23.2% of the world’s total. Yao et al (2015) [16] used the meta-frontier non-radial directional distance function to analyze regional energy efficiency, carbon emissions performance, and technology gaps in China, using province-equivalent data for 2011. The study will conduct a global meta-frontier non-radial directional distance function (GMNDDF) on agglomerated cities among Eastern and Central China and Korea taking energy efficiency and carbon emissions performance from a regional perspective. We further identify the sources of energy conservation and CO2 emissions reduction potential of these three groups This group comparison provides new insights by focusing on the following issues: Are there significant differences in energy efficiency and CO2 emissions performance across agglomerated cities and across Eastern and Central China and Korea?
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