Measurement and Influencing Factors of Low Carbon Urban Land Use Efficiency—Based on Non-Radial Directional Distance Function

The development and use of urban land is a major source of carbon emissions. How to reduce carbon emissions in the process of urban land use without harming the economy has become an extremely important issue. This paper integrating carbon emissions into the urban land use efficiency evaluation index system, measures low-carbon urban land use efficiency using a non-radial directional distance function and analyses its spatial and temporal evolution and its influencing factors using a combination of a kernel density estimation method and a Tobit model. The study found that: (1) China’s low-carbon urban land use efficiency shows a fluctuating development and tends to converge; (2) there is much room for reducing land input and carbon emissions in China, and in 2016 alone, land input and carbon emissions in the sample could be reduced by 10.38% and 5.31%, respectively; (3) at the national level, land finance, economic level and population density have a positive impact on low-carbon urban land use efficiency, while the traffic level has negative effects, and these effects show regional heterogeneity. Accordingly, the paper proposes corresponding policy recommendations.