Study On Assessment Of China’s Embodied Carbon Emission Within Trade And Analysis Of The Factors

Efforts in reducing the carbon dioxide have been made by different countries around the world according to Kyoto Protocol and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, in order to alleviate global warming. The responsibility in reducing trade emissions was calculated within national territory belongs to the producer according to United Nations Framework. The process of production and consumption were separated in the circumstance of economic globalization. The objects of reducing emissions of developed countries might be got because of global trade, but the carbon emission in producer would rose by the contuibution of embodied carbon emission in trade, which caused carbon leak. China has taken a lot of carbon dioxide emission caused by the consumption of its trade partners as the biggest processing industry in the world. To quantify China’s embodied carbon emission in trade and to analyze the changing partners and its influencing factors were conducive to make clear China’s international responsibility in carbon emission reducing, and to improve the scientificity and operability of energy conservation and emission reduction policies.Based on the year-to-year (import) non-competitive input-output tables, this thesis analyzed the changes of China’s embodied carbon emission by consumption-based measures and production-based measures. Both China’s embodied carbon emission from domestic production QP and consumption QC had been rising during1997-2010and QP was higher than QC,QP grew from3.02Gt in1997to7.09Gt in2010.QC grew from2.54Gt in1997to5.73Gt in2010. By establishing a virtual importer technical coefficient, this thesis studied China’s embodied carbon emissions in trade and the changing partners between China and its major trading partners in embodied carbon emissions in trade. The results revealed that China’ s embodied carbon emission in export (QE) grew from0.70Gt in1997to1.98Gt in2010, accounting for21.6%-36.8%of QP. China’s embodied carbon emission within import (QM) grew from0.16Gt in1997to0.63Gt in2010, accounting for5.3%-12.3%of QP.QE between China and U.S., China and Japan, China and EU accounted for45.0%-72.8%of China’s QE. QM between China and U.S., China and Japan, China and EU accounted for16.7%-25.4%of China’s QM. The ratio of embodied carbon emission in import in technical-intensive sector was much higher than that of export. However, the proportion of embodied carbon emission in export in labor-intensive sector and resource-pollution-intensive sector was higher than that in import.Structural decomposition analysis was used in this thesis to analyze the influencing factors affecting embodied carbon emission in trade. Factors influencing carbon emission in export included export value per employee, employment structure, employment population, input structure, energy intensities and coefficient of carbon emissions. The results showed that the increase of QE was mainly caused by export value per employee, the reduction was mainly caused by energy intensities. Factors influencing carbon emission in import was decomposed into total import volume, import structure, input structure, energy intensities, coefficient of carbon emissions and virtual importer technology coefficient. The results indicated that the increase of QM was mainly caused by total import volume, the reduction was mainly caused by energy intensities.