| From the medium-term of last century, as the rapid growth in developed countries and the gradually growing up in developing countries, countries increase dependence on fossil energy, and induce rising of carbon dioxide emission and other greenhouse gases. The rising emission of carbon dioxide lead to the environmental pollution, climate warming and ecology unbalance It had been a constraint to economic and social sustainable development. In this case, it becomes urgent to find a green development mode that could keep economic efficiency and improve atmospheric environment for every country. From the term of "Low Carbon Economy" was first raised in England in2003, many countries set off a "Low Carbon Revolution" one after the other. In the post-crisis era, some countries treat low carbon economy as important economic growth point, and apply multiple measures to regulate carbon dioxide emission. Existing research suggest that export structure and flows have significant impact on pollution level. If one country has comparative advantages on pollution intensive product, the expansion of export will raise pollution level of that country. Some developed countries consider that it is not clear on the division of governance responsibilities of carbon dioxide emission. It wll induce some carbon emission-intensive industries transferring to developing countries for developed countries enhancing regulation, and cause the developing countries became pollution haven of carbon dioxide emission. Developed countries think that "carbon leakage" is contrary to the original intention of regulating carbon dioxide emission, so they will take punitive measures, such as collecting carbon motivated border tax adjustment on the product from developing country.China is the largest developing country and largest carbon dioxide emission country in the world, and inevitable becomes the primary penalty object of developed country. Most of the existing research stay on a simple numerical calculation or econometrics test, and not consider the impact of carbon regulating measures on the carbon dioxide emission of Chinas export trade. The exsisting research also lack evidence to refute carbon motivated border tax adjustment collected by developed country. This paper establishes a system framework of theoretical and empirical analysis, and discusses the impact of export trade on china’s carbon dioxide emission. This paper discuss the conditions that developed country unilaterally strengthen carbon dioxide emission regulation will cause trade advantage enhance in the emission-intensive industries of China, as well as the possibility of "carbon leakage" and the importance of China’s carbon dioxide emission regulation. The significance of this study is as follows: Firstlv, it will facilitate identifying the true impact of export trade on China’s carbon dioxide emission level and the role of regulation. It provides reference tor making appropriate and effective carbon dioxide emission regulation policies which will improve sustainable development between economy and environment Secondly, it will facilitate to realize the protectionist measures implemented by developed country in the name of dealing with carbon dioxide emission. This non-cooperative behavior that replace trade policy by environment policy is a setback of free trade, and should be opposed and halted. Thirdly, given the ’public pollution" feature of carbon dioxide emission, all countries should work together to improve the international cooperation scheme, and share the responsibilitis that lower carbon dioxide emission reasonably.Research methods applying in this paper include: literature review, comparative study, input-output analysis method and econometrics analysis method. On the basis of these research methods, the main research conclusions of this paper are as follows:First, in the case of national regulation policies keep unchanged, the impact of export trade on one country’s carbon dioxide emission level depends on the export comparative advantage of export trade in that country. The empirical test shows that export trade facilitate lowering the carbon dioxide emission level in China. It also means that China has comparative advantage of export trade in clean product. The conclusion is consistent with result of theoretical analysis.Second, developed country enhance carbon dioxide emission regulation policy unilaterally will cause comparative advantage of export trade in some carbon dioxide emission-intensive industry transfer to developing country. The empirical test shows that after adding regulation factor of Annex I countries, the positive influence of export trade on carbon dioxide emission level will enhance. The conclusion verified the existence of pollution haven effect.Third, if China implement carbon dioxide emission regulation actively, developed country strengthen carbon dioxide emission regulation policy unilaterally will not necessarily inevitable causing rising of China’s carbon dioxide emission. That is to say,"carbon leakage" will not necessarily occur. Empirical test shows that after adding regulation (actor of China,"carbon leakage will weaken or disappear.Fourthly, since "carbon leakage" not necessary occur, carbon motivated border tax adjustment collected by developed country to deal with carbon leakage will lose the basis of existence. All country should drop this non-cooperative behavior, and look for effective regulation mode under the global cooperation mechanism.Fifthly, from comparative study, carbon dioxide emission regulation policies in China currently are still mainly based on command-and-control. The economic and voluntary regulation policies fall behind developed country, such as the USA, European Union, Japan and Korea. At the same time, although countries get some progress in reducing global carbon dioxide emission, it still faces many problems, such as the fulfillment of promises to reduce emission, the determination of responsibility that developing country should afford, the fulfillment of promises by developed country to provide financial and technical assistance and the practice of new mode of international cooperation.This research consists of seven chapters. The first chapter is introduction, which introduces the background and purpose of this research, research methods employed, theoretical framework, stucture and contribution, as well as definition of some major concepts. Chapter2is literature review. It synthesizes the existing research by domestic and foreign scholars from theoretical and empirical levels and points out the shortcoming. On this basis, it raises starting point of this study. Chapter3describes current situation of carbon dioxide emission regulation policies in countries and international cooperation. It also points out the gap between China and developed countries and the problems existing in international cooperation. Chapter4establishes a theoretical framework. Firstly, it analyzes the determination of one country’s carbon dioxide emission level and price under equilibrium condition. Secondly, it analyzes the impact of one country’s export trade on carbon dioxide emission level without regulation policy. Thirdly, it discusses the impact of regulation policy of developing country on its carbon dioxide emission of export trade. Lastly, it analyzes the impact of developed country strengthening regulation unilaterally on carbon dioxide emission of developing country by trade, as well as the role of regulation policy in developing country Chapter5measures the carbon dioxide emission level of China’s export trade, and tests pollution haven effect and carbon leakage preliminary. Chapter o is empirical test. It uses data of17industry sectors to test the impact of regulation policy of China and Annex Ⅰ country on the carbon dioxide emission of China’s export trade Chapter7provides conclusion and policy suggestion, and points out shortcoming of this paper and direction of future study.This paper has clone exploratory research in the following aspects:firstly, according to the global "public pollution" feature of carbon dioxide emission, this paper establishes consumer utility function taking global carbon dioxide emission as independent variable. It thinks that comsumer unitlity in one country is not only affected by carbon dioxide emission of this country, but also carbon dioxide emission levels of other countries. Carbon dioxide emission regulation policies under endogeneous conditions consider the maximization of consumer untility, so carbon dioxide emission regulation policy in one country not only aiVect carbon dioxide emission level in that country, but also affect carbon dioxide emission level in other countries.Secondly, this paper discusses the impact of carbon dioxide emission regulation policy at home and abrod on carbon dioxide emission of one country’s export trade systematically. Different from existing research, this paper shows that developed country strengthens regulation will enhance comparative advantage of export trade of some carbon dioxide emission-intensive sectors in developing country such as China. But whether there will be carbon leakage depends on policy responses in developing countries. Since carbon leakage will not necessarily occur, the carbon motivated border adjustment tax collected by developed countries to deal with carbon leakage will lose the basis to exist. This conclusion questions the validity of carbon motivated border adjustment tax theoretically, and makes up for insufficient research in domestic.Thirdly, this paper adds carbon dioxide emission regulation factors in China and Annex I country in econometric model. It discusses the impact of regulation policies on the carbon dioxide emission of China’s export trade in four steps, using panel data of17industrial sectors from2001to2010. The empirical test results are consistent with theoretical analysis. |
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