Energy efficiency, carbon dioxide emission efficiency, and related abatement costs in regional China: a synthesis of input–output analysis and DEA

This paper attempts to examine energy efficiency, carbon dioxide (CO₂) emission efficiency, and related abatement costs of China’s regions in 2012 by considering embodied carbon caused by trade. To this end, a combined approach with environmentally extended input–output analysis (EEIO) and DEA is proposed. We first apply the EEIO model to measure CO₂ emissions of 30 China’s regions from the consumption perspective, which can identify the described embodied carbon. According to the amounts of CO₂ emissions with respect to the production-based and consumption-based principles, 30 regions are divided into two groups, i.e., emission-importing regions and emission-exporting regions. For emission-importing regions, CO₂ emissions from the consumption perspective exceed that from the production-based perspective. The emission-exporting regions exhibit the opposite case. Our results show that energy efficiency and CO₂ emission abatement costs will be underestimated in both groups when ignoring the embodied carbon emissions. The emission-importing regions evidence higher efficiency scores and abatement costs than those emission-exporting regions, and there is a significant difference between these two groups in terms of energy efficiency and CO₂ emission efficiency, whereas there is no significant difference with respect to CO₂ emission abatement costs. It is interesting that emission-exporting regions enjoy a slight increase in CO₂ emission efficiency whereas emission-importing regions suffer from a decrease. Some useful policy implications are achieved.