Abstract
The scale effect of urbanization on improving carbon emission efficiency and achieving low-carbon targets is an important topic in urban research. Using dynamic panel data from 64 prefecture-level cities in four typical urban agglomerations in China from 2006 to 2016, this paper constructed a stochastic frontier analysis model to empirically measure the city-level total-factor carbon emission efficiency index (TCEI) at different stages of urbanization and to identify rules governing its spatiotemporal evolution. We quantitatively analyzed the influences and functional characteristics of TCEI in the four urban agglomerations of Pearl River Delta, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, the Yangtze River Delta, and Chengdu-Chongqing. Results show that the TCEI at different stages of urbanization in these urban agglomerations is increasing year by year. The overall city-level TCEI was ranked as follows: Pearl River Delta > Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei > Yangtze River Delta > Chengdu-Chongqing. Improvements in the level of economic development and urbanization will help achieve low-carbon development in a given urban agglomeration. The optimization of industrial structure and improvement of ecological environment will help curb carbon emissions. This paper provides decision-making references for regional carbon emission reduction from optimizing industrial and energy consumption structures and improving energy efficiency.
Highlights
Regional development trends show that cities are increasingly becoming urban agglomerations in China
Input factors had an indirect impact on carbon emission efficiency through GDP and carbon emissions
By establishing an stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) model, this paper measured the total-factor carbon emission efficiency (TCEI) of a total of 64 prefecture-level cities and rules behind its temporal and spatial evolution in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, and the Chengdu-Chongqing urban agglomerations from 2006 to 2016
Summary
Regional development trends show that cities are increasingly becoming urban agglomerations in China. Studying total-factor carbon emission efficiency (TCEI) and implementing carbon emission reduction measures from the perspective of urban agglomerations is important for exploring regional sustainable development. Ramanathan [23,24] defined carbon emission efficiency under a comprehensive framework including economic development, energy consumption, and carbon emissions He analyzed the relationship between the three factors in terms of temporal changes and spatial linkages and used data envelope analysis (DEA) to measure the carbon emission efficiency of seventeen countries in the Middle East and North Africa [25]. This paper used a parametric SFA method to analyze the total-factor carbon emission efficiency (TCEI) of 64 prefecture-level cities in four major urban agglomerations in China including the Pearl River Delta, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, the Yangtze River Delta, and Chengdu-Chongqing.
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