Research On The Measurement And Decomposition Of The Embodied Carbon Emissions Of The Trade Between China And European Union

China strives to reach the peak of carbon emissions prior to 2030 and achieve carbon neutral before 2060,while the European Union plans to achieve the latter in 2050.These are commitments made by the two sides as a response to global climate change.The climate has no borders.Under this circumstance,the development of global value chain(GVC)brings every country(region)much more closely together in the area of production,international trade and consumption.Economic activities of both sides are not isolated any more,they are linked instead.Moreover,not only economic activities affect carbon emission,the current situation of carbon emissions will also have further impacts on economic activities in the future.The mechanism between them is worthy of deeply analysis and discussion.By analyzing the mechanism of interaction between embodied carbon emissions and China together with EU’s economy in four aspects and collecting data about international trade,national total carbon emissions,input-output table,the paper constructs a Multi-Region Input-Output(MRIO)model.The paper also uses Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index(LMDI)to make an effects decomposition towards results from MRIO.Finally,the paper put forward suggestions accordingly.The results imply that the impacts of embodied carbon emissions on EU’s economy mainly involve increasing the import from China,facilitating a balanced trade structure,expanding the technology spillover market,optimizing the allocation of production factors.The impacts of that on China’s economy chiefly includes lowering the export of high carbon intensity products to EU,restricting the transformation of trade structure,adding the pressure on green economy construction,promoting the development of energy conservation and emission reduction technologies.From 2007 to 2016,the carbon intensity in China has dropped steadily to 258.92 ton/ million USD,that of EU fluctuates down to 83.54ton/million USD,the gap between them is large.The total embodied carbon emissions of China to EU decrease from 219.1 Mt to 161.36 Mt,that of EU rise from 34.99 Mt to 46.63 Mt.China accumulate 1507.81 Mt net carbon emissions for EU 1.91%——3.09% of China’s total carbon emissions are generated because of the international trade with EU,that of EU is only 0.94%——1.64%.The gap between China-EU embodied carbon emissions is larger than the gap between China-EU total carbon emissions.During 2007——2016,the technology effect has the biggest impact on the change of embodied carbon emissions in China,followed by the structure and scale effects.While that of EU are scale,technology,structure effects successively.Scale effect has positive impacts while others have negative impacts for both sides.In order to reduce the quantity of embodied carbon emissions and relieve its adverse impacts,it is necessary to take measures in many aspects.Specifically,they cover: balancing trade structure,facilitating the decrease of carbon intensity,controlling the development as well as the export volume of high carbon intensity sectors,exploring the potential of the primary and tertiary industries to reduce carbon intensity,lowering the carbon intensity and embodied carbon emissions of“manufacture of basic metals”,reducing embodied carbon emissions of key sectors,such as “electricity,gas,steam and air conditioning supply”,“manufacture of other non-metallic mineral products”,paying full attention to the role of technology effect,cooperating with other nations(regions)widely,participating actively in international climate negotiations,establishing whole climate and trade policies,increasing carbon sink,completing China’s Emission Trading Scheme(ETS).