China's “exported carbon” peak: patterns, drivers, and implications

Mi, Zhifu, Meng, Jing, Green, Fergus, Coffman, D'Maris and Guan, Dabo (2018) China's “exported carbon” peak: patterns, drivers, and implications. Geophysical Research Letters, 45. ISSN 0094-8276

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Abstract

Over the past decade, China has entered a “new normal” phase in economic development, with its role in global trade flows changing significantly. This study estimates the driving forces of Chinese export‐embodied carbon emissions in the new normal phase, based on environmentally extended multiregional input‐output modeling and structural decomposition analysis. We find that Chinese export‐embodied CO2 emissions peaked in 2008 at a level of 1,657 million tones. The subsequent decline in CO2 emissions was mainly due to the changing structure of Chinese production. The peak in Chinese export‐embodied emissions is encouraging from the perspective of global climate change mitigation, as it implies downward pressure on global CO2 emissions. However, more attention should focus on ensuring that countries that may partly replace China as major production bases increase their exports using low‐carbon inputs.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/19...
Additional Information:	© 2018 The Authors
Divisions:	Grantham Research Institute
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GE Environmental Sciences
Date Deposited:	30 May 2018 11:35
Last Modified:	09 Apr 2024 00:09
Projects:	NE/N00714X/1, ES/L016028/1, 71761137001, 41629501, 2016YFA0602604
Funders:	Natural Environment Research Council, Economic and Social Research Council, Natural Science Foundation of China, National Key R&D Program of China
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/88116

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