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As an important energy base in China, Shanxi Province, in its economic development, has depended heavily on coal resources. However, enormous coal consumption produces a large amount of carbon dioxide and an aggravated ecological problem. In this paper, the super efficiency slack-based measure and data envelopment analysis (SBM-DEA) model and Malmquist index were used to calculate the energy consumption and carbon emission efficiency of 11 prefecture-level cities in Shanxi in the period from 2000 to 2020. The results were as follows: (1) The primary form of energy consumption in Shanxi Province is the burning of coal, and the carbon emission efficiencies of the 11 prefecture-level cities are quite different. The technical efficiency, technological progress, and total factor productivity of Taiyuan and Shuozhou were found to be greater than 1 compared to other cities in Shanxi. (2) On the whole, although the carbon emission rate of Shanxi Province has slowed down, it still faces the problems of a large total emission base, high carbon emission intensity, and low efficiency of the unit carbon emission output. Industrial structure is the key factor restricting improvements in the efficiency of carbon emissions in Shanxi Province. (3) From the spatial and temporal evolution of the carbon emission efficiency in Shanxi Province, we can see that the carbon emission efficiency of the whole province gradually dispersed and improved from the central and northern regions to the southern regions during the period of 2000–2020. In order to achieve a low-carbon economy, Shanxi Province must optimize its industrial structure, accelerate research and development in low-carbon technologies, adjust the energy structure, and promote the construction of an energy supply system with clean low-carbon energy as the main source. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vertical curve is a major factor affecting vehicle exhaust (CO2, CO, NOx, PM2.5) emissions. This article takes a heavy-duty diesel truck as a typical vehicle, combining instantaneous speed, acceleration and the vehicle-specific power VSP to divide the operating mode, and the exhaust emission of a heavy-duty diesel truck is then calculated by using MOVES. Finally, the environmental modification factors (EMFs) are used to evaluate the influence of curvature change on the exhaust emissions. The results show that CO2 and PM2.5 emissions of heavy-duty diesel trucks are increasing with the curvature of the crest vertical curve changing; with the increase and decrease of curvature K of the crest vertical curve by 50%, CO and NOx emissions showed an increasing trend. Among the four main emissions, CO2 emission amount is the largest, followed by NOx, CO and PM2.5. The emission rates of CO2 and PM2.5 increase with the increase of curvature of the crest vertical curve, and the minimum values of CO2 and PM2.5 emission rates are 46.7 g/s and 0.022 g/s, respectively. The emission rates of CO and NOx increase with the increase of curvature. The minimum point of emission rates of CO and NOx are 0.042 g/s and 0.259 g/s, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is a large agricultural country with a high level of agricultural carbon emissions. Whether market prices can be used in agricultural production as a means of agricultural carbon emissions reduction is of great significance to improve the allocation of agricultural production factors and expand large-scale production. This paper applies an autoregressive distributed lag–pooled mean group(ARDL–PMG) model to evaluate the relationship between agricultural production factor prices, food consumption prices, and agricultural carbon emissions, using Chinese provincial panel data from 1994 to 2018. The results show that agricultural carbon emissions and agricultural production factor prices show environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) characteristics; agricultural carbon emissions and food prices show a U-shaped curve; and agricultural production factors are positively correlated with food price in both directions in the long-term. The results of Granger causality tests show that price is the cause of agricultural carbon emissions; the price of agricultural production factors and the price of food consumption are mutually causal. Such results have implications for price, agriculture, and environmental policies. The analysis implies that the market price can be applied to agricultural carbon reduction, which will help policymakers to implement effective price policies in order to reduce agricultural carbon emissions. One implication is that promoting the marketization of agricultural production factors and reducing price distortions will be conducive to carbon emissions reduction in agriculture, which in turn will increase food consumption prices. Therefore, subsidies are needed at the consumption end, which will eventually achieve further carbon emissions reduction at the production and consumption ends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]