Factors Driving Embodied Carbon Emissions from China-US Trade for 1992-2012: A Structural Decomposition Analysis

DOI

10.2991/iccte-17.2017.119How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Bilateral China-US trade; environmental input-output analysis; structural decomposition analysis (SDA); embodied carbon emissions

Abstract

China and the United States are the top two carbon emitters worldwide, and bilateral trade between the two countries plays a vital role in driving their emissions. Defining the key drivers and sectors for the emissions embodied in China-US trade will provide opportunities for identifying avenues for reducing overall carbon emissions. In this study, we employed structural decomposition analysis to investigate the driving factors and their mechanisms for carbon emission growth embodied in China-US trade from 1992 to 2012. The results are as follows. First, emissions embodied in bilateral trade increased by 444.8% (229.69 Mt CO2) from 1992 to 2012, although emissions decreased slightly between 2007 and 2012. Carbon intensity and trade volume were the largest negative and positive driving factors, accounting for 216.3% and -150.1% of the total emissions change, respectively. Second, carbon-intensive products dominated China-US trade during this time period. Products were derived from sectors such as electronic and communication equipment manufacturing, chemical industry, electric machinery and equipment manufacturing, and metal products. This study shows that improving energy efficiency and controlling the trade volume of carbon-intensive products are two effective measures for mitigating emissions embodied in China-US trade.

Copyright

© 2017, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

Download article (PDF)

TY  - CONF
AU  - Junping Ji
AU  - Can Zhang
AU  - Xiaoming Ma
PY  - 2017/07
DA  - 2017/07
TI  - Factors Driving Embodied Carbon Emissions from China-US Trade for 1992-2012: A Structural Decomposition Analysis
BT  - Proceedings of the 2017 2nd International Conference on Civil, Transportation and Environmental Engineering (ICCTE 2017)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 674
EP  - 678
SN  - 2352-5401
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/iccte-17.2017.119
DO  - 10.2991/iccte-17.2017.119
ID  - Ji2017/07
ER  -