Embodied Carbon in China’s Export Trade: A Multi Region Input-Output Analysis

Weixin Yang, Hao Gao, Yunpeng Yang and Jiacheng Liao
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Weixin Yang: Business School, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China
Hao Gao: Business School, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China
Yunpeng Yang: Antai College of Economics and Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200030, China
Jiacheng Liao: Faculty of Finance, City University of Macau, Macau 999078, China

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 7, 1-16

Abstract: With the rapid growth of China’s export trade and increasing pressure of domestic carbon emission reduction, the issue of carbon embodied in export trade has attracted increasing attention from academic circles. This paper has constructed a calculation model for embodied carbon in China’s export trade by using the multi-region input-output model and the international input-output data from the World Input-Output Database (WIOD) database in order to calculate the amount of embodied carbon. Our objective is to analyze the main source industry and specific sectors of embodied carbon in China’s export trade, and to provide a quantitative basis for emission reduction under the “carbon neutrality” strategy. The findings reveal that the embodied carbon in China’s export trade mainly comes from the secondary industry, which accounts for more than 90% of the total embodied carbon in export trade, while the proportions of embodied carbon in the primary industry and the tertiary industry are relatively low, about 1% and 5–7%, respectively. In terms of specific sectors, the crop and animal production and hunting sectors have the largest share (over 60%) of embodied carbon in the export trade of the primary industry; in the export trade of the secondary industry, the main sources of embodied carbon are the manufacturing sector and the power, gas, steam and air-conditioning supply sectors, respectively accounting for around 50% and 45% of the total embodied carbon in the export trade of the secondary industry; as for the tertiary industry, the transport and storage sectors have the largest share of embodied carbon in the export trade, which is around 70%. Based on the above research results, this paper has provided relevant policy recommendations, which are optimizing the export structure, improving the energy consumption structure and the carbon emissions trading system.

Keywords: international trade; embodied carbon; carbon emission reduction; multi-region input-output analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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