Sources of provincial carbon intensity reduction potential in China: A non-parametric fractional programming approach

With the increasing prominence of the global climate change, China's carbon intensity reduction has attracted considerable worldwide concern. This study proposes a fractional programming model to evaluate Chinese provincial carbon intensity reduction potential based on data envelopment analysis theory, which is superior to the common directional distance function approach in identifying global optimal solutions and improving the robustness of the estimation. To avoid the biased estimation, a meta-frontier is constructed according to the convergence of provincial carbon intensity, and then the overall potential is decomposed from the perspective of ineffective management, spatial technological gap and intertemporal technological gap. The results show that the carbon intensity of 30 Chinese provinces cannot converge to a common equilibrium and that 5 clubs that converge to different equilibria are clustered. Moreover, different clubs have diversified potentials for carbon intensity reduction, and spatial technological gaps contribute the most potential for clubs 3, 4 and 5. Even worse, the spatial technological gaps have not been significantly narrowed over time. This study provides not only a theoretical tool to investigate carbon intensity reduction potentials but also empirical evidence to guide China's carbon intensity reduction.