Carbon Neutrality Ambitions and Reinforcing Energy Efficiency Through OFDI Reverse Technology Spillover: Evidence from China

Carbon neutrality is the only way for green low-carbon development. Technological progress is an important starting point for improving energy efficiency. Through scientific and technological innovation, improving energy efficiency is a practical way to achieve the goal of carbon neutralization. Due to the limitation of data and index selection, there is no qualitative analysis of carbon neutrality in this paper. Compared with previous studies, the paper has the following contributions: Firstly, the energy efficiency score of China's provincial level is measured with the DEA method and it is found that the average energy efficiency score of the eastern region is the highest, followed by the western region, and finally the central region. The results also show that the energy efficiency is not in accordance with the economic growth. The regions with higher energy efficiency scores are not always economically developed because of huge energy consumption supporting the economic development. Secondly, the Tobit method is used to study the impact of the reverse technology spillover effect of OFDI on China's energy efficiency. The results show that the spillover effect has a significant positive effect on the improvement of China's energy efficiency, and has a positive impact on the eastern and western regions, but has no significant impact on the western region. Finally, we put forward some policy recommendations to increase energy efficiency to approach carbon neutrality and thus promote green economic development. This paper enriches the content of energy economy, the research method is innovative, and the conclusion is more scientific.