China’s low-carbon economic growth: an empirical analysis based on the combination of parametric and nonparametric methods

As the world’s most populous developing country and the world’s largest carbon emitter, China has already completed its 2020 Intended National Determined Contribution set out in the Paris Agreement. It achieved this result by adopting a dual-goal strategy of economic growth and reducing carbon emission, that is, low-carbon economic growth. Based on both parametric and nonparametric methods, quantitative and qualitative conclusions about China’s low-carbon economic growth are presented. It is found that since the beginning of this century, China has maintained an annual growth efficiency of 1% in low-carbon total factor productivity (TFP) and low-carbon technological progress rate. The Eastern region has leading advantages in low-carbon TFP, low-carbon technology advancement, low-carbon efficiency, and low-carbon technology revolution. It has the potential to be the first to reach its CO 2 turning point. The inefficiency ratio of labor and CO 2 is higher at the national level and in the Eastern region, with the two accounting for about seven tenths and eight to nine tenths, respectively. The difference is that at the national level, the input–output inefficiency is similar, and the inefficiency in the Eastern region is more from the input side, about eight tenths. At the present stage, China is still lenient in the implementation of low-carbon environmental regulations. In the future, the adjustment of low-carbon policy should pay attention to regional heterogeneity, focus on reducing labor and CO 2 inefficiency, and be more stringent in policy implementation.