China, as the biggest GHG emitter and the largest developing country, has been urged by international society to take responsibilities for reducing GHG, especially in the post-Kyoto commitment period. Currently, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) assigns the responsibility to parties who produce the pollution, using the production-based GHG emissions inventories. In this article, we analyze the difference between China's production- and consumption- based emission inventories and conclude that consumption-based GHG emission inventories are preferred; as it is fair that whoever consumes the emission should pay for their consumption. In addition, in order to consider environmental justice, policy-makers should take both economic and administrative measures to support poor provinces for reducing C02 emissions.
FU JiafengA RounaWANG MengKONG ShanshanGAO Qingxian付加锋阿柔娜王蒙孔珊珊高庆先
This paper uses the Global Trade Analysis Project(version 7)database to calculate embodied CO2emissions in bilateral trade between China and other countries(regions)based on input-output methods.The sources and flows of embodied CO2emissions in import and export trade of China are analyzed.Results show that the flows of embodied CO2emissions in export trade are highly concentrated.The main flows to the United States(US)and Japan account for 1/4 and 1/7 of the total CO2emissions in export trade,respectively.Concentrated flows of total exports and small differences in export structure are the main reasons for the highly concentrated export trade.The sources of embodied CO2emissions in import trade have relatively low concentration.Taiwan Province of China,Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China,US,Russia,Republic of Korea,and Japan account for around 7.72%–12.67%of the total embodied CO2emissions in import trade.The relative dispersion of import sources,the impact of the import structure,and the level of production technology in importing countries caused low concentration of CO2emissions in import trade.Overall,the embodied CO2emissions in the export trade of China are higher than those in import trade.As a result,production-based CO2emissions are higher than consumption-based CO2emissions.The difference of 8.96×108t of CO2,which comes mainly from the US,Japan,Germany,and the United Kingdom,accounts for 58.70%of the total difference.Some suggestions,such as improving energy efficiency,alerting high carbon-intensive industries transfer,expanding the market for sharing risks,and prompting the accounting system of consumption-based CO2emissions,are proposed based on the results.