Abstract
As a major carbon-emitting country, there is an urgent need for China to reduce carbon emissions. Studying the carbon emission efficiency of each province helps us to learn about the characteristics and evolution of regional carbon emissions, which is important for proposing effective and targeted measures to achieve the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals. This paper measures the carbon emission efficiency of 30 Chinese provinces from 2006 to 2019 based on a three-stage SBM-undesirable model and explores external drivers using stochastic frontier models. The results of the SBM-undesirable model show that the inter-provincial carbon emission efficiency is unevenly distributed and shows a big difference. From the results of the stochastic frontier model analysis, external drivers such as the intensity of finance in environmental protection, the level of economic development, the industrial structure, the level of urbanization, the degree of openness and the level of science as well as technology innovation all have an impact on the emission efficiency. In terms of LSTM model prediction, the model shows an excellent fitting effect, which provides a possible path for carbon emission efficiency prediction. Finally, based on the empirical results and the actual situation of each province in China, this paper proposes relevant feasible suggestions.