| Issues of climate change,energy,and environment have become important constraints of global economic development,especially in developing countries.As the global largest emitter of CO2,SO2,NOx,and PM2.5,China faces tremendous pressures from both international and domestic societies,which has prompted the Chinese government to design and implement a series of policies to control CO2 and air pollutants emissions over the last decade.The availability of natural resources,economic development,industrial structure,and technical level are very different among the different provinces in China.Frequent international and interprovincial trade cause large amount of emissions to be transferred between provinces.Emissions drived from trade also brings a substantial challenge of allocating emission reduction targets at provincial level,which would ultimately influence China to achieve the national mitigation target.This study focuses on China’s CO2 and air pollutants(SO2,NOx,and PM2.5)emissions embodied in global and domestic trades and its impact on emissions mitigation responsibilities at provincial level.These results provide deeper insight into the drivers of China’s emissions,which is important for designing effective policies on energy-saving and emission reduction.Firstly,we nested China’s 30 provincial multi-regional input-output(MRIO)model of 2002 and 2007(excluding Tibet,Hong Kong,Macao,and Taiwan)into the global MRIO model,which is defined as a linked MRIO.Based on an environmental extended linked MRIO model,we redefined producer-based emissions(PBE)and consumer-based emissions(CBE),respectively.The PBE involves production direct emissions(PDE)and consumption direct emissions(CDE),and the CBE involves production embodied emissions(PEE)and consumption embodied emissions(CEE).Based on this methodology,CO2,SO2,NOx,and PM2.5 emissions were respectively calculated at provincial level.Each of the four types of emissions,emissions per unit of gross domestic product(GDP),and per capita emissions were also analyzed.Secondly,based on the PDE and CDE,global and domestic trade related emissions were analyzed at China’s provincial level.The CO2,SO2,NOx,and PM2.5 emissions caused by international exports respectively accounted for 24.9%,22.5%,24.1%,and 22.3%of China’s total PDE,and those caused by international imports were only 6.7%,8.1%,5.9%,and 5.0%of the total CDE in China.Furthermore,the export related emissions mainly flow to the European Union(22.9-23.3%),North America(20.7-21.9%),and East Asia(12.0-12.3%).The huge volume of international exports,the extremely high emission intensities of energy-intensive industries,and the differences between export and import structures are the three major reasons for the large net export related emissions in China.Although China’s global exports are mainly from the eastern and southern coastal provinces(e.g.,Shanghai,Jiangsu,Zhejiang,and Guangdong),the emissions caused by exports represented a higher proportion of total emissions in the central and north-western provinces(e.g.,Shanxi,Henan,Shaanxi,and Inner Mongolia)compared to their contribution to export values.Furthermore,the contributions of central and the north-western provinces to China’s total export related emissions have increased between 2002 and 2007.For example,the export values of Shanxi,Henan,and Inner Mongolia only contributed 2.2%towards China’s total export.However,their share of China’s export related CO2 emissions caused by export increased from 8.5%in 2002 to 12.0%in 2007,and their shares of export SO2,NOx,and PM2.5 emissions reached to 13.6%,11.8%,and 15.2%in 2007.The proportions of CO2,SO2,NOx,and PM2.5 emissions caused by domestic trade were around 30%of the total PDE in China.The central area,north-west,north coast(Shandong and Hebei),and north-east(Liaoning,Jilin,and Heilongjiang)generated net domestic export emissions to the Yangtze River Delta,Pearl River Delta,and the Beijing-Tianjin regions.The net domestic export CO2 emissions of the north-west and north coast regions increased by 172.75 Mt and 145.38 Mt with an annual growth rate of 100.8%and 97.6%,respectively,between 2002 and 2007.In contrast,the net domestic import emissions of the east coast and Beijing-Tianjin increased by 261.09 Mt and 102.94 Mt with an annual growth rate of 57.8%and 30.8%,respectively,between 2002 and 2007.The spatial heterogeneities of resources,industrial structure&production efficiency,and trade structures are the main drivers of emissions transfer among various provinces and regions.Thirdly,sectoral distributions of PBE and CBE were analyzed.The PDE were mainly caused by energy-intensive industries,such as electricity production and steel industries.The key industrial sectors of CDE were similar to those of PDE,but the contributions of key sectors to CDE tend to be uniform between provinces,which might be caused by the emissions transfers between provinces and countries because of global and domestic trade.Regarding CBE,the key sectors were very different between the emissions of fixed capital investment and household consumption.Construction,equipment manufacturers,and services were the key emissions sectors for fixed capital investment,with the share of construction being much higher for China’s provinces compared to that of developed countries.For example,the contribution of PM2.5 emissions embodied in construction was 78.5%of China’s total PM2.5 of CBE for the fixed capital investment in 2007,but that was only 38.3%and 52.9%in US and Japan,respectively,in the same year.However,the key emissions sectors for household consumptions were highly related to livelihood,such as food,textile,chemicals,services,and etc.The shares of emissions related to basic consumer goods were higher in China than the developed countries.For example,the share of CO2 emissions related to food were 28.2%in China in 2007,which was much higher than that in the US(6.4%).Finally,we proposed a dynamic sharing mechanism of emissions responsibility at the provincial level.The emissions responsibility of an individual province can be evaluated through a weighted sum of the local emissions(Errp),domestic trade related emissions(Edomer),and international trade related emissions(forer).Among which,Eprr should be totally allocated to province r.For Edomer and Eforer,we defined domestic and international sharing coefficients of αri and βrj to allocate the relevant responsibilities.For domestic trade,we classified the provincial sharing coefficients into 5 groups based on the local economic development,energy reserves,sectorial structure,and trade features.Provincial CO2 emissions responsibilities were further discussed using the above mentioned mechanism.Along with regional integration and the optimum allocation of regional resources,the trade between an individual province and other provinces&countries would become more frequent,which could cause more emission transportation between various provinces.furthermore,the current emissions reduction mechanism based on PDE might increase the emissions leakage risk at China’s provincial level.Therefore,it is crucial to construct a more reasonable system to evaluate the emissions leakage risk between provinces and the impact on allocating provincial emissions responsibilities.This mechanism should also promote technology transfer among regions to improve the energy efficiency at a national level. |
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