Regional disparity and dynamic evolution of carbon emission reduction maturity in China's service industry

As a vital source of carbon emissions, the carbon emission reduction in service industry and its spatial and temporal distribution are of great significance to promote the green development of the service industry, however, there is a lack of research on carbon emission reduction maturity (CERM) and the spatial mechanism of the regional disparity in China's service industry. To address this problem, we select the basic index of service industry CERM based on the Kaya identity, measure the CERM in China's service industry from 2006 to 2015 by using a grey relational model, and analyse the spatial pattern of its evolution by applying the spatial auto-correlation method. The results show that: the average level of CERM in China's service industry is between 0.379 and 0.766, which shows a spatial imbalance. Provinces with high maturity are found in eastern coastal areas, and on the contrary, those with low maturity are found in the western district where the economy is less developed, which shows a decreasing tendency from coastal regions to inland and from eastern areas to the middle and western areas. From the spatial auto-correlation perspective, service industry CERM in China shows spatial aggregation. Neighbouring regions with similar maturity influence each other and produce obvious spatial spillover effects and the spatial disparity tends to decrease. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.