Dynamic analysis of agricultural carbon emissions efficiency in Chinese provinces along the Belt and Road

Hua Zhang; Sidai Guo; Yubing Qian; Yan Liu; Chengpeng Lu

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0228223

Dynamic analysis of agricultural carbon emissions efficiency in Chinese provinces along the Belt and Road

PLoS One. 2020 Feb 7;15(2):e0228223. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0228223. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Hua Zhang¹, Sidai Guo¹, Yubing Qian¹, Yan Liu^{1

2}, Chengpeng Lu^{3

4

5}

Affiliations

¹ Sichuan Circular Economy Research Center, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang, China.
² School of Public Administration, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China.
³ Institute of County Economy Development & Rural Revitalization Strategy, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China.
⁴ Key Lab of Pollution Ecology and Environmental Engineering, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, China.
⁵ Key Lab for Environmental Computation and Sustainability of Liaoning Province, Shenyang, China.

Abstract

To better understand the agricultural resources and environmental problems of the provinces along The Belt and Road in China, it is critical to investigate their agricultural carbon emission efficiency and evolutionary trends. Based on the panel data of 18 key provinces and cities between 2006 and 2015, this paper evaluated the agricultural carbon emission efficiency with the data envelopment analysis-Malmquist model and further explored their dynamic evolutionary trends. There were several main findings. First, the efficiency levels of agricultural carbon emissions showed significant regional differentiation among the areas, with that along the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road being much higher than that along the Silk Road Economic Belt. Second, technical efficiency was the key factor that restricted the improvement of the comprehensive efficiency of agricultural carbon. Third, most provinces invested in too many redundant and unreasonably allocated resources, showing a trend of diminishing returns to scale. Last, According to dynamic evolution analysis, the total productivity still demonstrated a diminishing trend. This paper provides some suggestions for effectively improve the efficiency of agricultural carbon emissions in China, such as optimize the agricultural industrial structure, increasing the investment of carbon emission reduction technology, and implementing a carbon emission quota clearing system. This paper contributes to the improvement of the environment in China.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Agriculture*
Carbon / analysis*
China
Global Warming
Models, Theoretical
Spatial Analysis

Substances

Carbon

Grants and funding

This study is sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41701142, 71774026, and 41471116), Soft Science Project of Science and Technology Department of Sichuan (No. 18RX0986), Research Center of Sichuan Rural Development (No. CR1813) and Project for Serving Gansu Province’s Economic and Social Development of Lanzhou University (No. 2019-FWZX-04). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.