What Is the Regional Differences in Carbon Emission Performance: Evidences From Energy-intensive Industries in China?

As the major energy consumers, energy-intensive industries are the key players in achieving carbon emission reduction targets. Grasping the carbon emission reduction potential has a direct impact on the implementation of the carbon emission reduction policies of China. The paper builds a super-Slack Based Model(SBM) considering this undesirable output, and calculates the carbon emission efficiency. Then, the Meta-Frontier Malmquist-Luenberger productivity index (MF-MLPI) is constructed to dynamically analyse the growth rate changes of the carbon emission efficiency and the regional differences in energy-intensive industries. Furthermore, the carbon emission reduction potential of the energy-intensive industries in various economic regions of China is discussed and the conclusions are as follows: there is a big difference in the carbon emission Technology Gap Ratios (TGRs) of the energy-intensive industries in different economic regions; the growth rate of the carbon emission efficiency of energy-intensive industries shows a trend of first declining and then slowly recovering while the carbon reduction potential generally shows a trend of decreasing and then rising; and the carbon emission reduction potential in the eastern region keeps decreasing. The following is recommended: the government should rationally distribute energy-intensive industries, promote industrial structure adjustment, optimize the energy structure according to the regional industrial advantages; increase investment in R&D, promote energy technology innovation in energy-intensive industries; prioritize the promotion of carbon peaks on key emission industries and regional, formulate differentiated plans for the regions and industries with different carbon emission reduction potentials.