Non-radial metafrontier approach to identify carbon emission performance and intensity

Qunwei Wang (), Yung-Ho Chiu and Ching-Ren Chiu

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2017, vol. 69, issue C, 664-672

Abstract: Different carbon emitting nations and regions use different production technologies. To analyze potential sources of carbon intensity reduction, this study applied a metafrontier function and a non-radial data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach to propose a new carbon emission performance index. An empirical study of carbon emissions from 58 countries between 2001 and 2007 led to three key findings. First, different reference technologies lead to significant differences in carbon emission performance. Assessing carbon emission performance using the group frontier as the evaluation criterion consistently yields equal or greater performance than when using the metafrontier as the benchmark. Second, the carbon emission performance of Asia is lower than that of Europe and the Americas, but Asia has the greatest potential to reduce carbon intensity. Production technology levels in Asia have lagged behind levels in Europe and the Americas; these gaps, however, have gradually narrowed. Finally, ineffective management and gaps in production technologies are the two main contributors to carbon dioxide intensity. Management factors are more significant overall for Asia, Europe and America; However, different individual countries have different perspective on the sources of potential carbon intensity.

Keywords: D24; O57; Q53; Carbon intensity; Performance decomposition; Metafrontier; DEA (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136403211630956X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:rensus:v:69:y:2017:i:c:p:664-672

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/600126/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 600126/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2016.11.199

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews is currently edited by L. Kazmerski

More articles in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().