Empirically Analysis of the CO2 Emissions Embodied in Exports of China

In this paper,using the input-output model,the author first calculated the CO 2 emissions embodied in exports of China in 2002 and 2007.Then,the author empirically analyzed problems existing in the composition of exported products and analyzed its possible reasons.The research results of this paper are as follows:Since China’s entry into WTO,the CO 2 emissions embodied in exports of China have been increasing rapidly;the value of exported products of high-carbon emissions industries accounts for a relatively higher proportion to China’s total exports value because China’s carbon intensive products have a certain competitive advantage.Additionally,this paper has put forward relevant suggestions based on these results.     

Influences of Border Carbon Adjustments on China’s Foreign Trade

Abstract

The EU, the United States and other economies, with the intention to implement unilateral trade measures Border Carbon Adjustments, impose emission reduction pressure on developing countries. Once implemented, the measures will have great impact on China’s foreign trade. Using the input-output table in 2007, this paper had analyzed the influences on China’s foreign trade as a whole and sub-sectors in three tax rates scenarios. The results showed that the tariff level of China’s exports will increase by 3.6%–6.3% if the tax was levied on exports embodied emissions, and by 1.0%–1.7% if levied on export direct emissions. In 2007, the former total amount of carbon tax was about US$42.6–73.0 billion, 4 times that of the latter. Based on export embodied emissions, sectors largely influenced were non-traditional energy intensive ones, such as textile, et al. These sectors should be encouraged to carry out industrial upgrading, raising the value-added of export goods, and reducing their embodied emissions by reduction of energy intensity. Taking into account of the complexity of data collection, the tax levied on products direct emission is more operational. The results showed that the five top sectors most affected were other chemical materials, processing of petroleum and nuclear fuel, coking, smelting and rolling of ferrous metal and textile. Most of them were energy intensive sectors. Therefore, adjusting export products structure, and controlling too fast development of energy intensive industries are also important strategies in China.     

Energy Embodied in Goods in International Trade of China: Calculation and Policy Implications

Abstract

In recent years, China’s energy demand and Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have grown very fast, quite an amount of which was exported as energy embodied in goods in international trade rather than consumed domestically. Starting from the concept of embodied energy, based on input-output energy analysis approach, in this paper the energy embodied in goods in international trade of China during the period from 2001 to 2006 is calculated. The results show that although China has become a net importer of petroleum since 1993, China is a net exporter of embodied energy due to international trade in goods. In 2002, the total amount of energy embodied in exported goods was about 410 million tce (ton of coal equivalent, hereinafter referred to as “tce”). Eliminating the amount of energy embodied in imported goods of about 170 million tce, the net export of embodied energy was about 240 million tce, accounting for 16% of the aggregate primary energy consumption of that very year in China, and the net export of embodied emissions was about 150 million tons of carbon. With the rapid growth of China’s international trade, assuming no structural input-output changes of among sectors, in 2006 the net export of embodied energy went up to about 630 million tce, an increase of 162 % over 2002. In addition, this paper also analyzes the possible sources of error in calculation, and also discusses the policy implications according to the result of the calculation.     

Research on carbon emissions in China's export trade based on input-output model

Becoming the world’s largest emitter of carbon makes China the object of criticism;however,people may ignore the fact that when China exports low-carbon products,the carbon emissions have been left in the meanwhile,forming the so-called"embodied carbon".Using the input-output model,this paper analyzes the carbon emission intensity and amount of embodied carbon of various sectors in China’s export trade in 2002 and 2007,and filters out high carbon emission sectors.In addition,this paper also points out the problem of carbon emissions’international transfer from developed countries to China through the analysis of national and regional flow of export carbon emissions and changing of the proportion of emissions for exports relative to total emissions,and explains the reason that caused carbon transfer to China by using the treadmill of production theory.Based on that,this paper proposes some measures for carbon reduction in China from the foreign trade perspective.     

Carbon Embodied in International Trade of China and Its Emission Responsibility

Abstract

Carbon emissions embodied in international trade of China during 1997–2007 are accounted by input–output method based on Chinese input–output table and global trade analysis project database. It is revealed that carbon emissions embodied in imports and exports both increased during 1997–2007, but carbon emissions embodied in exports are greater than those embodied in imports, China is a net export nation in embodied carbon. The net exports of embodied carbon account for about 10.82% of the total carbon emissions in 1997, dropped to 7.15% in 2002, increased to 13.13% in 2006, and slightly dropped to 12.64% in 2007. Low-end position of international industry division is an objective factor of being a net exporter of embodied carbon for China, and usage of a large amount of obsolete energy-using equipments wasted much energy and increased carbon emissions embodied in exports. Importers should take more responsibilities for carbon emissions embodied in trade, and China should take a certain responsibility for unreasonable energy dissipations too.     

CO2 emission driving forces and corresponding mitigation strategies under low-carbon economy mode: evidence from China’s Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region

On account of the background of China’s “new normal” characterized by slower economic growth, this paper analyses the low-carbon economy status quo in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region and empirically investigates the relationship between carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions and its various factors for China’s Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region using panel data econometric technique. We find evidence of existence of Environmental Kuznets Curve. Results also show that economic scale, industrial structure, and urbanization rate are crucial factors to promote CO₂ emissions. However, technological progress, especially the domestic independent research and development, plays a key role in CO₂ emissions abatement. Next, we further analyze the correlation between each subregion and various factors according to Grey Relation Analysis. Thereby, our findings provide important implications for policymakers in air pollution control and CO₂ emissions reduction for this region.     

Influences of Border Carbon Adjustments on China’s Foreign Trade

The EU, the United States and other economies, with the intention to implement unilateral trade measures Border Carbon Adjustments, impose emission reduction pressure on developing countries. Once implemented, the measures will have great impact on China’s foreign trade. Using the input-output table in 2007, this paper had analyzed the influences on China’s foreign trade as a whole and sub-sectors in three tax rates scenarios. The results showed that the tariff level of China’s exports will increase by 3.6%-6.3% if the tax was levied on exports embodied emissions, and by 1.0%-1.7% if levied on export direct emissions. In 2007, the former total amount of carbon tax was about US$42.6-73.0 billion, 4 times that of the latter. Based on export embodied emissions, sectors largely influenced were non-traditional energy intensive ones, such as textile, et al. These sectors should be encour-aged to carry out industrial upgrading, raising the value-added of export goods, and reducing their embodied emissions by reduction of energy intensity. Taking into account of the complexity of data collection, the tax levied on products direct emission is more operational. The results showed that the five top sectors most affected were other chemical materials, processing of petroleum and nuclear fuel, coking, smelting and rolling of ferrous metal and textile. Most of them were energy intensive sectors. Therefore, adjusting export products structure, and controlling too fast development of energy intensive industries are also important strategies in China.     

NEWS

Abstract

Co-integration theory has been employed in this paper and Granger causes are found between urbanization rate and GDP, between capital stock and GDP. Scenario analysis of GDP is performed using the GDP model established in the paper. The energy consumptions in Germany, Japan and other developed countries are analyzed and compared with the energy consumption in China. Environmental friendly scenario of energy demand and CO₂ emissions for sustainable China has been formed based on the results of comparison. Under environmental friendly scenario, the primary energy consumption will be 4.31 billion ton coal equivalence (tce) and CO₂ emissions will be 1.854 billion t-c in 2050; energy per capital will be 3.06 tce that is 1.8 times of energy consumed in 2005 in China and 51% of consumed energy per capital in Japan in 2003. In 2050, the energy requirement of unit GDP will be 20% lower than that of Germany in 2003, but will be still 37% higher than that in Japan in 2003. It is certain that to fulfill the environmental friendly Scenario of energy demand and CO₂ emissions is a difficult task and it needs long term efforts of the whole society, not only in production sectors but also in service and household sectors.     

China’s Export Expansion,Export Structure and Energy Consumption

Abstract

Since the reform and opening up, China’s export trade has maintained a rapid growth; meanwhile, China’s energy consumption has been increasing sharply. “High export and high energy consumption” has become the feature of China’s trade and economic development. In this paper, based on the input–output analysis approach, the authors have conducted an empirical study on the export trade and energy consumption of 21 trade industrial sectors. The results show that, China is a big net exporter of embodied energy. Assuming that the export growth rate of embodied energy maintains to be about 23.6%, the average annual growth rate of the past 32 years, and based on the input–output data of 2005, by 2030 China’s net export of embodied energy would be over eight times more than the aggregate energy production, which is obviously infeasible. As a country of very low per capita energy, China must change its export pattern, encourage or restrain the export of different industrial sectors according to their energy consumption intensity, and promote structural change of energy– efficient exported products, so as to achieve the sustainable development. Accordingly, the authors put forward some suggestions.     

A subsystem input–output decomposition analysis of CO<Subscript>2</Subscript> emissions in the service sectors: a case study of Beijing,China

The carbon emissions in service sectors have attracted increasing attention around the world. However, few studies have examined the driving forces for CO₂ emissions from service sectors in developing countries. With the process of accelerating industrialization, China’s service sectors are facing growing pressure to pursue energy savings and emission reductions, especially in several developed regions. In this paper, in order to better understand how CO₂ emissions in Beijing’s service sectors have evolved, we utilized a subsystem input–output decomposition analysis to study the pattern and driving factors of consumption-based emissions in Beijing’s service sectors. The results showed that the transportation sector and the Scientific Studies Technical Services sector caused the most CO₂ emissions in Beijing’s service sectors. The emission intensity effect potentially reduced CO₂ emissions by 10,833 Mt, primarily due to the decreased energy intensity of non-service sectors. Effects of demand and technology were mainly responsible for the increased CO₂ emissions in Beijing’s service sectors. Such influence was mainly related to the external component of service sectors, indicating a strong pull effect exerted by service sectors on non-service sectors. Thus, decarbonizing the supply chain of service sectors and improving the energy intensity are necessary to alleviate CO₂ emissions in Beijing.     

Regional differences and influencing factors in the CO<Subscript>2</Subscript> emissions of China’s power industry based on the panel data models considering power-consuming efficiency factor

With the economic development, China has become the largest CO₂ emissions country. China’s power industry CO₂ emissions accounted for about 50% of total CO₂ emissions. Therefore, exploring major drivers of CO₂ emissions is critical to mitigating its CO₂ emissions in power industry. Many studies considered the time series model to analyze the national influences factors of CO₂ emissions. But this paper focuses on regional differences in CO₂ emissions and adopts panel data models to explore the major impact factors of CO₂ emissions in the power industry at the regional and provincial perspectives. The results indicate economic growth level plays a dominant role in reducing CO₂ emissions. The power-consuming efficiency on the demand side has large potential to mitigate CO₂ emissions, but its influences are different in three regions. The impacts of the electric power structure on CO₂ emissions decline from the eastern region to the central and western regions. The influence of urbanization and industrialization also has significant regional differences. Therefore, the governments should consider the influencing factors and regional differences and formulate appropriate policies to decrease CO₂ emissions in the power industry.     

Comparing and evaluating the nationally determined contributions of the top six emitters under the Paris Agreement goals

ABSTRACT

Comparing and evaluating the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) is an important element in global stocktake in the post-Paris climate negotiations, aimed at closing the emissions gap with the Paris Agreement goals. To date, however, there has still been no explicit guideline or method. By applying emissions allowance allocated by 16 schemes as benchmarks, this paper tries to compare and evaluate the NDCs of the top six emitters, which jointly account for about 70% of the world’s CO₂ emissions. Results show that the four developed countries’ NDCs lack ambition with respect to most allocations under 2°C and all under 1.5°C, indicating they need to substantially ratchet up their NDCs and lead elevating mitigation. Evaluating cumulative emissions is more likely to clarify the ambition and fairness of China’s NDC. If considering cumulative emissions, China’s NDC is aligned with the median of cumulative allowances under 2°C and within the 1.5°C range. The Paris Agreement invited the Parties to communicate the mid-century low emissions strategies. This paper also tries to explore the mid-century mitigation in the perspective of allocations, which might provide decision-makers with some useful information when envisaging the post-NDC mitigation.     

Carbon Embodied in International Trade of China and Its Emission Responsibility

Carbon emissions embodied in international trade of China during 1997-2007 are accounted by input-output method based on Chinese input-output table and global trade analysis project database.It is revealed that carbon emissions embodied in imports and exports both increased during 1997-2007,but carbon emissions embodied in exports are greater than those embodied in imports,China is a net export nation in embodied carbon.The net exports of embodied carbon account for about 10.82% of the total carbon emissions in 1997,dropped to 7.15% in 2002,increased to13.13% in 2006,and slightly dropped to 12.64% in 2007.Low-end position of international industry division is an objective factor of being a net exporter of embodied carbon for China,and usage of a large amount of obsolete energy-using equipments wasted much energy and increased carbon emissions embodied in exports.Importers should take more responsibilities for carbon emissions embodied in trade,and China should take a certain responsibility for unreasonable energy dissipations too.     

Dynamic Changes,Regional Differences,and Influencing Factors of CO2 Emission Performance in China

Abstract

This paper proposes to use DEA models with undesirable outputs to construct the Malmquist index that can be use to investigate the dynamic changes of CO₂ emission performance. With the index, the authors have measured the CO₂ emission performance of 28 provinces and autonomous regions in China from 1996 to 2007; with the convergence theory and panel data regression model, the authors analyze the regional differences and the influencing factors. It is found that the performance of CO₂ emissions in China has been continuously improved mainly due to the technological progress, and the average improvement rate is 3.25%, with a cumulative improvement rate of 40.86%. In addition, the CO₂ emission performance varies across four regions. As a whole, the performance score of eastern China is the highest. The northeastern and central China has relatively lower performance scores, and the western China is relatively backward. The regional differences are decreasing, and the performance of CO₂ emissions is convergent. The influence of some factors on the performance of CO₂ emissions is significant, such as the level of economic development, the level of industrial structure, energy intensity, and ownership structure. The influence of some factors, such as opening-up to the outside world, on the performance of CO₂ emissions is not significant.     

Impacts of economic growth and urbanization on CO<Subscript>2</Subscript> emissions: regional differences in China based on panel estimation

This study analyzed the impact of urbanization and the level of economic development on CO₂ emissions using the STIRPAT model and provincial panel data for China. This study classified the 29 provinces of China into three groups (eastern, central, and western regions) and examined regional differences in the environmental impacts of urbanization and economic development levels. The results demonstrated that there was an inverted U-shaped relationship between urbanization and CO₂ emissions in the central and western regions of China. However, we did not confirm the environmental Kuznets curve relationship between urbanization and CO₂ emissions in eastern China, where CO₂ emissions increase monotonically with urbanization. This study showed that the impacts of urbanization differ considerably. There was a U-shaped relationship between economic growth and CO₂ emissions. However, the point of inflexion was very low, which indicates that economic growth will promote CO₂ emissions in China. The share of the industry output value had a marginal incremental effect on CO₂ emissions. There was a decreasing effect of population scale on CO₂ emissions. Energy efficiency is the main factor that restrains CO₂ emissions, and the effect was higher in regions with low energy efficiency.     

Analysis of the Energy Embodied in Foreign Goods Trade of China

Abstract

In recent years, scientists have been increasingly interested in the energy embodied in traded goods among countries. In this article, the direct energy intensities in various economic sectors of China were calculated with the data of energy consumption and output value of each sector, and the input–output table was used to estimate the external energy consumption. The total energy intensity of all sectors was then obtained. From the data of international trade, the energy embodied in goods trade of China was estimated for the period of 1994–2001. During this period, the average energy intensity of imported goods was always higher than that of exported ones. As a country with a surplus in international goods trade, China actually imported net embodied energy in the past few years. The net embodied energy imported was at the same magnitude of the imported energy in the form of fossil fuels.     

晶硅光伏组件出口对中国碳排放的影响

基于文献资料,估算了2004-2009年中国晶硅光伏组件制造过程中的能源消耗和CO2排放强度。研究发现,2004-2009年,晶硅光伏组件制造过程中的能耗强度和CO2排放强度均逐年下降。2009年,单晶、多晶光伏组件制造过程中的能耗强度分别为2 629 kWh/kWp和2 242 kWh/kWp,碳排放强度分别为1 829 gCO2/Wp和1 559 gCO2/Wp。由于晶硅光伏组件的大量出口,中国不仅出口了大量的隐含碳,还损失了数量可观的、潜在的CO2减排能力。2004-2010年,中国的隐含碳净出口量由3万tCO2增加到852万tCO2;如果出口的晶硅电池全部用于国内,在其生命周期内累计可减排CO23.4亿t。除2004年和2010年外,国内安装的晶硅光伏组件在其生命周期内所能减少的CO2排放不足以抵消晶硅光伏行业的CO2排放,晶硅光伏行业对中国CO2减排的贡献为负。在多晶硅全部国产的情况下,中国若维持晶硅电池应用中的CO2减排量与全行业CO2排放量的平衡,至少应将晶硅组件制造的7.2%安装在国内使用。若多晶硅进口比例仍保持在50%左右,则至少应将晶硅组件制造的4.9%安装在国内使用。     

China’s Export Expansion, Export Structure and Energy Consumption

Since the reform and opening up,China’s export trade has maintained a rapid growth;meanwhile,China’s energy consumption has been increasing sharply. "High export and high energy consumption" has become the feature of China’s trade and economic development.In this paper,based on the input-output analysis approach,the authors have conducted an empirical study on the export trade and energy consumption of 21 trade industrial sectors.The results show that,China is a big net exporter of embodied energy.Assuming that the export growth rate of embodied energy maintains to be about 23.6%,the average annual growth rate of the past 32 years,and based on the input-output data of 2005,by 2030 China’s net export of embodied energy would be over eight times more than the aggregate energy production,which is obviously infeasible.As a country of very low per capita energy,China must change its export pattern,encourage or restrain the export of different industrial sectors according to their energy consumption intensity,and promote structural change of energy-efficient exported products,so as to achieve the sustainable development.Accordingly,the authors put forward some suggestions.     

A laboratory study on CO2 emission from asphalt binder and its reduction with the use of warm mix asphalt

Oxidation of hydrocarbon in asphalt binder leads to the production of carbon dioxide (CO₂) during the production of hot mix asphalt. The objective of this laboratory study was to investigate the effects of the asphalt additive Sasobit^®, asphalt content and mixing/placement temperature on CO₂ emissions from binder with laboratory measurements. The isolated effects of Sasobit on asphalt absorption into the aggregate were also looked at. Temperature was found to be the only statistically significant factor on emissions. This would suggest that warm mix asphalt technology, which employs the use of Sasobit in asphalt mixtures, is a very effective way of lowering the industry's CO₂ emission impact, both directly and by the use of less energy for heating. This work predicts that greater than 30% reduction of CO₂ emissions is possible with typically used levels of Sasobit.     

Carbon price impacts on sector cost: based on an input–output model of Beijing

Under the pressure of sustained growth in energy consumption in China, the implementation of a carbon pricing mechanism is an effective economic policy measure for promoting emission reduction, as well as a hotspot of research among scholars and policy makers. In this paper, the effects of carbon prices on Beijing’s economy are analyzed using input–output tables. The carbon price costs are levied in accordance with the products’ embodied carbon emission. By calculation, given the carbon price rate of 10 RMB/t-CO₂, the total carbon costs of Beijing account for approximately 0.22–0.40% of its gross revenue the same year. Among all industries, construction bears the largest carbon cost. Among export sectors, the coal mining and washing industry has much higher export carbon price intensity than other industries. Apart from traditional energy-intensive industries, tertiary industry, which accounts for more than 70% of Beijing’s economy, also bears a major carbon cost because of its large economic size. However, from 2007 to 2010, adjustment of the investment structure has reduced the emission intensity in investment sectors, contributing to the reduction of overall emissions and carbon price intensity.