An evolving energy-environmental-economic system towards coordination: Spatiotemporal features and key drivers. (15th January 2023) - Song, Junnian
Abstract: An energy-environmental-economic (3E) system evolving towards long-term sustainability is facilitated by the coordination within. The spatiotemporal evolution as well as key drivers of 3E system coordination (3ESC) quantified from synchrony of subsystems' development remains elusive. Targeting 30 Chinese provincial regions covering 2011–2019, this study successively evaluates the development level, development speed, coordination index of subsystems and 3ESC based on a 26-index framework. Spatial econometric analysis and principal component analysis are adopted to examine the spatial clustering effect and extract the key drivers of 3ESC. The results indicate that the coordination index of each subsystem and 3ESC for all regions undergo significant increase. An upward trend in 3ESC (over 0.85) has spread into all regions. Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Tianjin and Jiangsu keep the leading position. A transition from negative to positive appears to the spatial autocorrelation, with "High-High" regions gathering in the Yangtze River Delta and Shandong. Variations in the influence degree of the key drivers corroborate the progress of China in the transition towards spurring high quality economic development. Policy implications are revealed from the perspectives of restrictive subsystem and prior tasks for consolidating 3ESC to provide reference for synergizing subsystems and achieving regional sustainability. Highlights: A 26-index framework is constructed for evaluating the energy-environmental-economic (3E) system. 3E system coordination is modeled from the perspective of dynamic development of subsystems. An obvious improvement appears for 3ESC that is over 0.85 for all regions during 2016–2019. The spatial autocorrelation of 3ESC transitions from negative to positive over two periods. Variations in key drivers of 3ESC corroborate the progress towards high quality development.