Evaluating carbon neutrality potential in China based on sparse principal component analysis

Abstract

The resource endowments, development levels and emission reduction potential of different provinces in China are different. Accurately judging regional differences of carbon neutrality potential of each province is helpful to analyze the low-carbon development strategy. In this research, a comprehensive evaluation index system for carbon neutrality potential is constructed, and the carbon neutrality potential score of China from 2003 to 2019 is calculated by sparse principal components(SPC), and dynamically evaluated by combining time ordered weighted average operator (TOWA operator). The results show that: (1) The evaluation score of carbon neutrality potential is greatly affected by the sustainable driving force, and the overall trend is on the rise. But there is a significant gap between provinces, showing the distribution characteristics of “high in the east and low in the central and western regions”. (2) The upward trend of sustainable driving force is obvious, there is a momentum of accelerated development in recent years. The gap between provinces is large. (3) The resilient driving force showed an increasing trend, but some provinces have experienced a decline since 2017. (4) The growth trend of coordination and transformational resilience is flat. The development of provinces is relatively balanced. This provides a reference for the analysis of each region to formulate low-carbon development strategies tailored to local conditions.

Keywords

• Carbon neutral potential
• Sparse principal component analysis
• TOWA operator
• Dynamic evaluation