CO2, Environmental Emergencies, and Industrial Pollution Assessment in China from the Perspective of the Circular Economy

Abstract

The rise of energy consumption has also increased emissions of the “three wastes” (wastewater, waste gas, and industrial solid waste), and environmental emergencies caused by pollutants, natural disasters, and production safety accidents have aroused social concerns. As few scholars have combined treatment efficiency of the three wastes with environmental emergencies to explore their relationships, this research thus uses a two-stage undesirable Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method to explore the situations of 4 regions and 30 provinces in China from 2013 to 2017 based on such interactive perspectives. The study finds that the overall regional environmental efficiency in China is generally low, and in terms of regional differences, the eastern and northeastern regions are better than the central and western regions. The efficiency values of the three wastes in China have also fluctuated greatly from 0.7 down to 0.2 in recent years. The efficiency of environmental emergencies in China is greatly impacted by the efficiency of environmental governance inputs. Based on the results, the study proposes that the eastern provinces can be an example for promoting balanced regional development and offers policy recommendations such as taking precautions against environmental emergencies.