Revealing the Coupling Coordination Mechanisms between Carbon Efficiency and Carbon Equity: The Evidence in China’s Interprovincial Trade

Effectively balancing carbon efficiency and carbon equity is vital for China’s carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals; however, the relationship between them remains unclear. This study first reveals the coupling coordination mechanisms between carbon efficiency and carbon equity based on Chinese provincial data from 2012 to 2017. We demonstrated that the carbon efficiency and carbon equity exhibited a strong coupling coordination relation (CCR). Carbon efficiency significantly promoted carbon equity and was a major driver of the CCR. With every 1 unit increase in carbon efficiency, carbon equity and the CCR increased by 3.766 to 5.694 units and approximately 1-2 units, respectively, and the positive impact of carbon efficiency on the CCR was approximately 6 to 8 times that of carbon equity. Carbon efficiency, carbon equity, and the CCR worsened between 2012 and 2017, and the bottom 50% of them were mainly concentrated in central and western provinces with abundant natural resources and net inflow of embodied carbon emission. Additionally, we demonstrated that resource dependence hindered carbon efficiency, carbon equity, and the CCR, and the potential transmission pathways were the crowding-out effect on the technology innovation, digital informatization, and advancement of industrial structure.