ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Environmental Economics and Management
This article is part of the Research TopicNavigating Socioeconomic Complexities in the Global Energy TransitionView all 12 articles
Spatio-Temporal Patterns of Energy Efficiency in Chinese Prefecture Cities Under Green Low-Carbon Transition
Provisionally accepted
- Qiannan Normal University for Nationalities, Duyun, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Green and low-carbon economy has become an important direction for global development, serving both as an inevitable choice in addressing climate change and an intrinsic requirement for economic structural transformation. China's economy is currently at a critical stage of structural transformation. From this perspective, this paper conducts an empirical analysis of China's energy efficiency and green and low-carbon economic development levels based on data from 285 prefecture-level cities from 2012 to 2022. Specifically, the study employs the Non-Expected Output SBM model to systematically measure energy efficiency and the level of green and low-carbon economic development. Additionally, it utilizes the Dagum Gini coefficient and kernel density estimation to analyze and interpret the differences in energy efficiency and its spatio-temporal distribution characteristics. Finally, the study empirically examines the impact of low-carbon economic development on energy efficiency. The findings reveal: First, national energy efficiency shows an overall upward trend, but significant regional disparities exist. Intra-regional, inter-regional disparities, and super-variability density differences all significantly influence the inequality of energy efficiency. Second, the spatial distribution of energy efficiency exhibits a significant positive correlation, tending toward spatial agglomeration. Finally, the study's conclusions and policy implications provide implementation pathways for enhancing China's energy efficiency and promoting green low-carbon economic development, offering some direction and theoretical references for fostering the development of green productivity in the new era.
Keywords: Dagum Gini coefficient, energy efficiency, Green low-carbon economy, Kernel density, non-expected output SBM model
Received: 07 Nov 2025; Accepted: 22 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Yang, Chen and Cao. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Liming Chen
Qinglou Cao
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.