Policy choices for China to reduce carbon emissions in coping with extreme weather: Applying a dynamic two-stage undesirable non-radial directional distance function.

ABSTRACT

China is the world's largest carbon emitter and also one of many countries most affected by extreme weather. Although its government has set carbon reduction targets, the public has not established a connection between carbon reduction and coping with extreme weather. This study aims to help establish the above connection and applies a dynamic two-stage undesirable non-radial directional distance function to evaluate energy performance in the first stage while establishing CO2 emissions as a link to evaluate coping with extreme weather performance in the second stage. From empirical results, the average efficiency of 30 provinces in China in coping with extreme weather from 2011 to 2020 is only 0.484, or far lower than the energy efficiency value of 0.709. Based on the differences in performance between the two stages and the changing trends in the room for improvement of CO2 emissions, this study proposes policy options to promote the participation of the entire society in the emission reduction process.