Prediction of Regional Carbon Price in China Based on Secondary Decomposition and Nonlinear Error Correction

Effective prediction of carbon prices matters a great deal for risk management in the carbon financial market. This article designs a blended approach incorporating secondary decomposition and nonlinear error-correction technology to predict the regional carbon price in China. Firstly, the variational mode decomposition (VMD) method is used to decompose the carbon price, and then, the time-varying filter-based empirical mode decomposition (TVFEMD) is introduced to decompose the residual term generated by VMD, and the multiple kernel-based extreme learning machine (MKELM) optimized by the sparrow search algorithm (SSA) is innovatively built to forecast the carbon subsequences. Finally, in order to mine the hidden information contained in the forecasted error, the nonlinear error-correction method based on the SSA-MKELM model is introduced to correct the initial prediction of carbon price. The empirical results show that the proposed model improves the prediction accuracy of carbon prices, with RMSE, MAE, MAPE, and DS up to 0.1363, 0.1160, 0.0015, and 0.9231 in Guangdong, respectively. In the case of the Hubei market, the model also performs best. This research innovatively expands the prediction theory and method of China’s regional carbon price.