Dynamic and heterogeneity assessment of carbon efficiency in the manufacturing industry in China: Implications for formulating carbon policies

In 2019, the Chinese manufacturing industry (CMI) accounted for 13.46% of the world's energy consumption and 12.24% of carbon dioxide emissions. Such high emissions and pollution pose a challenge for China towards becoming carbon neutral. Through the panel data of 30 provinces, 283 key cities, and 30 sub-sectors from 2006 to 2019, combined with econometrics and machine learning, the dynamic evolution trend and spatial hetero-geneity of CMI were comprehensively analyzed. The notable results are fourfold. (1) Carbon efficiency of CMI in most provinces is between 0.4881 and 0.846, which can be divided into three clusters (high, medium, and low); the difference between clusters is the primary source of the overall difference in carbon efficiency, and carbon efficiency distribution converges tend to a higher level; (2) The promotion of TC is generally greater than that of EC; both TC and EC have certain spatial agglomeration characteristics among three city clubs; (3) High energy consumption sectors shows low carbon efficiency, high technology, and emerging sectors demonstrate high carbon efficiency; TC has a greater enhancement effect on medium and high energy consumption sub-sectors, while EC demonstrates a greater promotion on low energy consumption sub-sectors. This study has implica-tions for policy development regarding promoting carbon efficiency, carbon neutralization, and the world's carbon emission reduction.