Research on the coordinated development of provincial urbanization and carbon emission efficiency of construction industry in China

Abstract Background The policy of energy conservation and emission reduction restricts the economic and social development of all countries in the world, and the impact on China, which has a low degree of urbanization, is more serious. As one of the industries contributing to China's urbanization process and carbon emissions, it is of great practical significance to explore the coordination relationship between urbanization and carbon emission efficiency of construction industry ( CEECI ) for realizing the goal of "double carbon", promoting urbanization construction and solving the problem of "green development". Taking 30 provinces in China as the research target area, the double weighted summation method and the undesired output super-efficiency Windows-EBM-DEA model are used to measure the provincial urbanization level and CEECI respectively. Then the coupling coordination degree model of relative development index is introduced and spatial autocorrelation model, the spatial and temporal differentiation characteristics of the coordination level of urbanization and CEECI are analyzed. Results The results are shown as follows: from 2010 to 2021, China's urbanization level has steadily increased, but the growth rate has gradually narrowed; the overall development of CEECI is ‘N’ type, and the inflection points appear in 2013 and 2018 respectively. There are significant differences in the level of urbanization and CEECI between provinces. The coordination level of China's urbanization and CEECI is transitioning from the running-in stage to the coordination stage. The spatial distribution pattern is in a state of dynamic change, and the overall distribution pattern is ‘high in the east, low in the middle and western regions’. The difference between provinces is obviously weakened, 63.33% of the provinces are in a high running-in level, and 93.33% of the provinces show the characteristics of efficiency lag. The spatial distribution of coordination level between provincial urbanization and CEECI is positive, and the spatial dependence of coordination level between the two systems is gradually weakened, and two convergence types of high and low are formed. Conclusions This study believes that China should put forward corresponding targeted coordination and optimization paths from the perspective of low-carbon development of urbanization and construction industry according to the coordination type between urbanization and CEECI, so as to achieve high-quality development of China 's economy and society.