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The resource allocation efficiency of the energy industry in the Yangtze River economic belt is related to the green and high-quality development of the region. This study constructed a quantitative model which modified from the traditional HK model to evaluate the efficiency of energy industry resource allocation. This paper makes a quantitative evaluation of the efficiency of inter-industrial and inter-regional resource allocation of the energy industry in the Yangtze River economic belt from 2000 to 2019. The results show that: the average annual loss of total factor productivity of the energy industry in the Yangtze River economic belt is as high as 25.11% due to the misallocation of resources among the energy industries, capital misallocation, labor misallocation, and intermediate input misallocation were 12.32%, 7.08%, and 5.08%, respectively. The misallocation of resources among the energy industries of the provinces in upper, middle, and lower reaches is gradually increasing in turn. The average annual loss of total factor productivity (TFP) in the energy industry of the Yangtze River economic belt is 6.5% due to the misallocation of resources between regions. Capital misallocation, labor misallocation, and intermediate input misallocation were 2.48%, 3.40%, and 0.63%, respectively. In the upper, middle, and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the labor force, capital, and intermediate input of each province’s energy industry were misallocated to a different extent. According to the trend of resource input in the energy industry of various provinces and cities, the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River also show different characteristics.

This study focuses on the effects of China’s carbon peaking policy, investigating how to balance nonfossil energy consumption and coal consumption to achieve China’s carbon peaking policy goal. The research applies the recursive dynamic computable general equilibrium model to simulate the impact of China’s energy planning policies using five scenarios to analyze the carbon emissions and economic effects of China’s energy planning policy from the perspectives of energy use, carbon emissions, the macroeconomy, and institutional income. The simulation results indicate that to achieve the goal of carbon peaking by 2030, the annual installed capacity of nonfossil energy must reach 112.29 gigawatts, and average annual coal consumption in the China 15th Five-Year Plan and 16th Five-Year Plan should be reduced by 20 million and 40 million tons, respectively, which will result in the proportion of nonfossil energy in primary energy consumption reaching about 25%. Limiting coal consumption will slow economic growth, whereas increasing the installed capacity of nonfossil energy will stimulate economic growth. The combined policies will have a significant impact on reducing carbon emissions and achieving the carbon peaking goal and will also offset the adverse effects of such policies on the macroeconomy.

Based on the panel data of prefecture-level cities in China from 2006 to 2019, this paper uses the PSM-DID method to empirically test the internal impact mechanism among high-speed railway opening, inter-regional factor allocation efficiency, and urban environmental governance. The research results show that: (1) There is a serious factor-misallocation problem among prefecture-level cities in China. From 2006 to 2019, the factor misallocation between prefecture-level cities led to an average annual loss of total factor productivity in China’s economy of 52.5%, an average labor misallocation of 23.16%, and an average capital misallocation of 18.69%. Since 2013, capital misallocation has exceeded labor misallocation as the main reason for factor misallocation among prefecture-level cities in China. (2) The opening of high-speed railways can promote the efficiency of urban factor allocation through the technological innovation effect, the foreign investment attraction effect, and the population agglomeration effect. The improvement of urban factor allocation efficiency can promote the improvement of urban environmental quality through the effects of industrial structure optimization, income enhancement, and human capital agglomeration. Therefore, the opening of a high-speed railway can improve urban environmental quality through the intermediary effect of improving the efficiency of urban factor allocation; that is, the opening of a high-speed railway has a dual positive effect of economic efficiency and environmental quality improvement. (3) The optimization effect of factor allocation and the environmental governance effect of the opening of high-speed railways have strong urban scale heterogeneity, urban characteristic heterogeneity, and regional heterogeneity. The research content of this paper has important guiding significance for the construction of China’s new development paradigm, accelerating the construction of “a unified national market,” and green and low-carbon development.

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