Evaluating the CO2 performance of China's non-ferrous metals Industry: A total factor meta-frontier Malmquist index perspective

China is the world's largest producer and consumer of non-ferrous metals, and the non-ferrous metals industry is energy- and emission-intensive. The CO2 emissions of the industry have increased nearly four times from the level in 2000 to reach 310 million tons in 2014. To cope with the issues of CO2 emission and other environmental problems under the background of low-carbon development, it is necessary to analyze the CO2 emission performance of China's non-ferrous metals industry. Based on group heterogeneity, this paper uses data envelopment analysis to calculate the Shephard distance function and then uses the Shephard distance function and non-parametric meta-frontier methods to construct the meta-frontier Malmquist CO2 emission performance index (MMCPI) of China's non-ferrous metals industry during the period 2006-2014. The index is further decomposed into three parts: technical efficiency change, technological progress change and technological catch-up effect. The results showed that the MMCPI of China's non-ferrous metals industry exhibits an upward trend during the review period. The improvement in CO2 emission performance is most significant in the central region, followed by the eastern and western regions. Based on the decomposition of MMCPI, the effect of technological progress are significantly different for the different regions, indicating that more targeted policies are need for different regions. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.