Abstract
Rapid economic development has resulted in a significant increase in energy consumption and pollution such as carbon dioxide (CO2), particulate matter (PM2.5), particulate matter 10 (PM10), SO2, and NO2 emissions, which can cause cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. Therefore, to ensure a sustainable future, it is essential to improve economic efficiency and reduce emissions. Using a Meta-frontier Non-radial Directional Distance Function model, this study took energy consumption, the labor force, and fixed asset investments as the inputs, Gross domestic product (GDP) as the desirable output, and CO2 and the Air Quality Index (AQI) scores as the undesirable outputs to assess energy efficiency and air pollutant index efficiency scores in China from 2013–2016 and to identify the areas in which improvements was necessary. It was found that there was a large gap between the western and eastern cities in China. A comparison of the CO2 and AQI in 31 Chinese cities showed a significant difference in the CO2 emissions and AQI efficiency scores, with the lower scoring cities being mainly concentrated in China’s western region. It was therefore concluded that China needs to pay greater attention to the differences in the economic levels, stages of social development, and energy structures in the western cities when developing appropriately focused improvement plans.
Highlights
The increase in the use of fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution has led to a rapid increase in the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases such as CO2, and air pollution from fine particles such as PM2.5, sulphur dioxide (SO2 ), and nitrogen dioxide (NO2 ), all of which have had a negative impact on water resources, crops, natural ecosystems, and human health, and a consequent negative effect on medium- and long-term sustainable social and economic development [1]
Data envelopment analysis (DEA), which is based on the Pareto Optimal solution concept, uses a linear programming method to evaluate the relative utility of Decision Making Units (DMUs), and is able to simultaneously measure the efficiency between multiple inputs and multiple outputs to determine a production efficiency frontier, calculate the DMU production position and the distance to the efficiency frontier, and assess the DMU efficiency value
To resolve the problems associated with the application of undesirable outputs in the DEA model, a radial directional output distance function was proposed [53,54] based on an extension of the output distance function concept in Shephard [55]
Summary
The increase in the use of fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution has led to a rapid increase in the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases such as CO2 , and air pollution from fine particles such as PM2.5 , sulphur dioxide (SO2 ), and nitrogen dioxide (NO2 ), all of which have had a negative impact on water resources, crops, natural ecosystems, and human health, and a consequent negative effect on medium- and long-term sustainable social and economic development [1].Over the past 30 years, China’s reforms and opening up policies have been primarily aimed at economic development, which has resulted in an over-exploitation of the natural resources and a significant increase in environmental pollution and ecological damage. The increase in the use of fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution has led to a rapid increase in the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases such as CO2 , and air pollution from fine particles such as PM2.5 , sulphur dioxide (SO2 ), and nitrogen dioxide (NO2 ), all of which have had a negative impact on water resources, crops, natural ecosystems, and human health, and a consequent negative effect on medium- and long-term sustainable social and economic development [1]. The associated increase in coal-fired energy consumption has caused increased and worsening air pollution and higher concentrations of greenhouse gases such as CO2. China’s share of global CO2 emissions from 2002 to 2030 was going to increase from 14% to 19%, and the United States Energy Agency [3] estimated that China’s CO2 emissions would comprise 24.5%. The World Bank [4] claimed that by 2020, China’s air pollution would annually cause 600,000 early deaths and 20 million respiratory disease sufferers, and its water pollution would affect 190 million people and the deaths of 30,000 children from diarrhea.
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