Exploring the spatiotemporal evolution and risk factors for total factor energy productivity in Guangdong Province, China

The promotion of low-carbon and green development is emphasized in the report of the Twentieth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, indicating that the deepening concept of green transformation is significant to Guangdong's modernization and development of environmental protection industries. The purpose of this study is to effectively enhance the green total factor energy productivity (TFEP) and narrow its spatial differences to achieve the coherent development of environmental protection. The GML and FGNZ decomposition methodologies are adopted to examine the TFEP in Guangdong Province. Furthermore, ArcGIS's natural discontinuity, spatial trend surface analysis, and standard deviation ellipse methods are applied to characterize the spatial and temporal evolution of TFEP. Finally, the Geodetector method is used to study the spatiotemporal evolution of the TFEP in Guangdong Province according to risk factors. Overall, the TFEP in Guangdong Province has exhibited a growing trend. The general trends in TFEP are high. Nevertheless, there are large regional differences. Economic development, financial development, the industrial structure, and political reform are the core risk factors. This study is conducive to proposing effective strategies for realizing the goals of sustainable carbon reduction.