Evaluation of low-carbon competitiveness in Western China

Low-carbon competitiveness reflects a country or region's level of competitive advantage or ability in low-carbon efficiency, low-carbon environment, and low-carbon technology. Regions in western China are currently engaged in two major undertakings: leapfrog development and sustainable development. Under a background of western development and global transformation, western China must transform its mode of development and switch to a low-carbon development path. In addition, it must make full use of its backwardness advantage to enhance its low-carbon competitiveness to become a society characterized as resource saving, environmentally friendly, and climate-safe. By building an evaluation system for low-carbon competitiveness, this article adopts a principal component analysis (PCA) model, entropy method, and clustering analysis method to analyze low-carbon competitiveness in China's western regions. The results show the following. (1) Western China's low-carbon economy can be divided into three levels: Chongqing, Shanxi, Guangxi, and Sichuan belong to a relatively low-carbon region; Yunnan, Xinjiang, Ningxia, Guizhou, Inner Mongolia, and Tibet represent a mid-carbon area; and Qinghai and Gansu can be classified as a relatively high-carbon area. (2) The top five areas in terms of low-carbon competitiveness are Chongqing, Shanxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, and Yunnan; the evaluation results are essentially in accord with the areas' actual level of low-carbon development. As the first batch of pilot provinces approved by the National Development and Reform Commission, Chongqing, Shaanxi, and Yunnan rank high, further proving the effectiveness of the pilot programs. At present, China's low-carbon economy development via the demonstration pilot is being gradually pushed forward, from area to area and stage by stage. To obtain state support, western regions should seek further national low-carbon demonstration pilot projects. (3) The results show that energy consumption per unit of GDP is lower and the ranking of low-carbon competitiveness is higher. Thus, it is clear that energy consumption per unit of GDP must be reduced to enhance low-carbon competitiveness. The current industrial structure in western China, characterized as being highly dependent on resources and energy, is unacceptable; the western region has become an industrial transfer base of high-energy consumption for China's central and eastern regions. Therefore, western regions should follow the "Twelfth