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How does carbon emission efficiency vary in Chinese cities?- taking 108 cities along the Yangtze river economic belt as an example

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Listed:
  • Ma, Dalai
  • Deng, Pengli
  • Yan, Yin
  • Zhang, Jiawei
  • Guo, Zuman
  • Hu, Chao
  • Li, Kaihua

Abstract

Improving carbon emission efficiency (CEE) is an important way to achieve carbon peaking by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060. Existing literature mainly focuses on CEE research at the provincial level and lacks in-depth research at the city level. In this paper, 108 cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) are selected as research objects, and we conduct a more in-depth study on the spatial and temporal evolution of CEE and its influencing factors through gravitational modeling, trend surface analysis and spatial econometric modeling. The study found that: (1) the overall change of CEE in YREB is volatile, with the distribution of downstream > midstream > upstream, and the overall trend of dispersion and multi-centered distribution. (2) The CEE of YREB has obvious spatial variability, with fewer cities with high CEE, mainly concentrated in the downstream, such as Shanghai, Suzhou, Wenzhou and Shaoxing, etc., while cities with low CEE are mainly concentrated in the upstream and the middle reaches, such as Pu'er, Liupanshui, Panzhihua and Ganzhou. (3) The CEE of YREB is characterized by spatial correlation, and the whole spatial correlation network is a connected whole, but the spatial interactions have gradually weakened since 2020, and the agglomeration in the downstream area is more stable. (4) The influencing factors are all significant to the CEE, among which the level of economic development, foreign trade and technological innovation have a positive influence on the CEE of YREB, and the level of urbanization, government intervention, industrial structure and population have a negative influence on the CEE of YREB. The findings of this paper provide useful policy insights for accelerating the construction of ecological civilization.

Suggested Citation

  • Ma, Dalai & Deng, Pengli & Yan, Yin & Zhang, Jiawei & Guo, Zuman & Hu, Chao & Li, Kaihua, 2026. "How does carbon emission efficiency vary in Chinese cities?- taking 108 cities along the Yangtze river economic belt as an example," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 256(PD).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:renene:v:256:y:2026:i:pd:s0960148125018725
    DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2025.124208
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