Abstract
As an important part of regional coordinated development, the high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin has become a national strategy. It is imminent for resource-based cities to perform a high-quality transformation. The analysis of carbon emission efficiency in the Yellow River Basin includes the examination of spatiotemporal evolution characteristics and the main driving factors. This is done by utilizing the super-efficiency SBM-DEA and panel Tobit regression models, with the assistance of night light data. Our findings are as follows: (1) Carbon emissions continue to grow. The “Jiziwan” basin is an area where plenty of high-emitting cities agglomerate. The carbon emission of resource-based cities presents a W-shaped pattern in time. (2) In time, the carbon emission efficiency follows a U-shaped curve. Spatially, the carbon emission efficiency in the middle reaches is comparatively low, whereas it is relatively high in both the upper and lower reaches. And that in high carbon-emitting resource-based cities are in the low to medium range. (3) Carbon emission efficiency has a significant negative relationship with energy intensity, urbanization rate, and population density and a significant positive relationship with industrial proportion. Energy intensity is the most direct driving force. That is to say, we can increase carbon emission efficiency effectively by reducing energy intensity.
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Data availability
The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, Liyan Zhang, upon reasonable request.
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We are grateful to the editors and the reviewers for their helpful suggestions and comments.
Funding
This work was supported by the Key Laboratory of Carrying Capacity Assessment for Resource and Environment, Ministry of Natural Resources (Grant No. CCA2019.16), China Academy of Engineering (Grant No. 2017-ZD-03), the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University (Grant No. NCET-11-0731), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. 2022YJSGL08).
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Mei Song: conceptualization, writing-review and editing, supervision, and project administration; Yujin Gao: writing-original draft and validation; Liyan Zhang: methodology, writing-original draft, software, and visualization; Furong Dong: writing-original draft and validation; Xinxin Zhao: visualization and formal analysis; Jin Wu: data curation, resources, and investigation
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Song, ., Gao, Y., Zhang, L. et al. Spatiotemporal evolution and driving factors of carbon emission efficiency of resource-based cities in the Yellow River Basin of China. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 96795–96807 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-29113-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-29113-4