Research On Measuring And Improving The Efficiency Of Green Transformation Of Resource-based Cities In China

At present,a large number of resource-based cities in China have entered a mature and declining period,facing more serious resource depletion and ecological environment problems,and the contradiction between urban economic development and environmental quality has become increasingly prominent.To help resource-based cities overcome difficulties and achieve sustainable development,China has introduced a series of policies,plans,and opinions to encourage and support the green transformation of resource-based cities.Many resource-based cities have also taken measures to promote green transformation based on their own conditions,but their efforts of the green transformation have not achieved ideal results.The low efficiency of green transformation is considered one of the most important reasons,which means improving the efficiency of green transformation is the key to the green transformation of resourcebased cities in China.However,existing literature pays less attention to the measurement of green transformation efficiency in resource-based cities,and there is even less research on the path to improve green transformation efficiency.Most of it focuses on analyzing the size and direction of the impact of individual factors on green transformation efficiency,and lacks a systematic improvement path design based on a configuration perspective.This study chooses resource-based cities as the research object because they have a higher urgency for green transformation than other general cities.The results of the study on measuring and improving the efficiency of green transformation also have reference significance for other cities to carry out green transformation.In view of this,guided by the principles of urban metabolism,sustainable development theory,resource curse theory,and life cycle theory,this study starts with green transformation and sets the research object as 108 resource-based cities.The EBM model and GML index are used to measure the efficiency of green transformation and conduct dynamic analysis of the efficiency of green transformation,On this basis,the fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis method is used to further explore and proposing the paths for improving the efficiency of green transformation in both overall and different types of resource-based cities.The results indicate that:Firstly,the overall efficiency of green transformation in resourcebased cities in China is relatively low.During the research period,the coefficient of variation continuously increased,and there is a certain degree of imbalance between cities.There is still great potential and space for improving green transformation efficiency.From the perspective of resource-based cities with different life cycles,sorted by the average value of green transformation efficiency,they are recovered 、 growth 、 recessionary and mature resource-based cities in order.The green transformation efficiency trend of each type of resourcebased city and the overall resource-based city is consistent.From the GML index results,the overall efficiency of green transformation is on the rise.There are differences in the reasons for the growth of green transformation efficiency among growth,mature,recessionary,and regenerative resource-based cities.Most resource-based cities slow down the growth of green transformation efficiency due to the lack of improvement in technological efficiency.Secondly,there are a total of four paths to improve the efficiency of green transformation in resource-based cities,with four core paths.The core conditions for the optimal path are: high proportion of education expenditure,high endowment structure,and high level of economic development;There are a total of six paths to improve the efficiency of green transformation in the growing resource-based city,among which there are six core paths.The core conditions for the optimal path are: high technology expenditure ratio,low endowment structure,high economic development level,and high environmental regulation intensity;There are a total of six paths to improve the efficiency of green transformation in the mature resource-based cities,with four core paths.The core conditions for the optimal path are: high industrial structure,proportion of high technology expenditure,low foreign direct investment,low urbanization rate,and low environmental regulation intensity;There are three ways to improve the efficiency of green transformation in resourceexhausted cities,with a total of three core paths.The core conditions for the optimal path are: low industrial structure,high proportion of education expenditure,high endowment structure,and high level of economic development;There are three ways to improve the efficiency of green transformation in recovered resource-based cities,with one core path being high economic development level and high environmental regulation intensity.It can be seen that each path has at least two core conditions,and complementing other edge conditions can achieve high green transformation efficiency.From the path configuration,it can be seen that a single element cannot constitute a sufficient and necessary condition for achieving high green transformation efficiency.Only by coupling multiple elements can the efficiency of urban green transformation be improved.To achieve green transformation efficiency improvement in resource-based cities,it is not necessary to pay attention to all possible factors.Various types of resource-based cities should reasonably find suitable paths based on their own development stages and actual situations.