CO2 embodied in China's foreign trade 2007 with global policy implications

This article estimated the carbon emissions embodied in China's foreign trade in2007 with an input-output method. The results showed that China was a net exporter of atleast 484.18MT carbon emissions in 2007, which accounted for 8.59% of total on aproduction basis. In total emissions, imported carbon accounted for 21.97% while exportedcarbon occupied 30.56%. In terms of sectors, Manufacture of Textile was the biggest netexporter, which was followed by Smelting and Pressing of Ferrous Metals, Manufacture ofMetal Products, and so on. In terms of trading partners, Hong Kong was the biggestrecipient of exported emissions of mainland China, which was followed by the US,Netherlands, UK, Singapore, and so on. Considering that a large amount of goods exportedfrom mainland China to Hong Kong would be re-exported to the US, the emissionsultimately embodied in China-US trade would be greater than the estimation. Given thatcurrent production-based mechanism for allocating carbon abatement burden ininternational climate regime fails to reflect the complexities of international trade, thesacrifices that net carbon exporters are making and the actual environmental impact ofconsumption activities, BEET must be paid more attention if future policies would to beequitable and able to encourage active participations. Actually, so far, the seeking of aglobal solution for combating climate change because of its global impact seems to beprone to problems such as international conflict, carbon leakage, and free riding, etc., andcurrent progress in slowing GHG emissions is actually arriving via fragmented andmultispeed efforts, we may not just waiting for a global solution for the problem. Instead, apolycentric approach, which means actions at various levels with active oversight of local,regional, and national stakeholders, may be a choice.