Carbon Emissions Embodied In China’s International Trade:a Comparative Study On North-South Trade And South-South Trade

Since the reform and opening up, China has got a huge economic benefit from foreign trade, but the foreign trade mode of high energy consumption, high pollution and low added value has also made China paid a heavy environmental price. Currently, the global warming problem, which relating to the future environment of humanity living, has become the most popular political and economic issues, and China as the world’s biggest emitter of carbon dioxide has suffered increasingly severe pressure on carbon emissions from the international community. Regarding the relationship between foreign trade and China’s carbon emissions, what can’t be ignore is that: In the context of economic globalization, the emissions accounting system based on the "producer responsibility principle" has made China born the tremendous domestic and international pressures to reduce emissions, while delivered a large quantity of goods to other countries (especially developed countries) and hence suffered the "transfer emissions". Therefore, studying the impact of China’s foreign trade on the carbon emissions, testing China’s foreign trade flows of the implied carbon emissions, measuring and verifying that whether China has born high environmental costs for other countries (especially the developed countries) during China’s foreign trade, has an important theoretical and practical significance.This dissertation calculated the carbon emissions embodied in China’s international trade based on the "consumer responsibility principle", including the carbon emissions embodied in trade by China with countries of different economic development level, then analyzed and compared the factors that affect the changes of trade carbon emissions in North-South trade and South-South trade, and the effecting path of environmental regulations affecting the carbon emissions embodied in China’s international trade through North-South trade, main contents and conclusions are as follows:Firstly, the combined effects of China’s foreign trade to carbon emissions are unfavorable, and adverse influence is growing in terms of the environmental terms of trade or net trade carbon content. In view of the environmental terms of trade, the environmental terms of trade have been greater than1and being deteriorated since2003; in view of the net trade carbon content, despite the carbon contents of China’s exports and imports continued to grow during the study period, the growth rate of the carbon contents of China’s imports as well as the it’s proportion to China’s total carbon emisions were lower than the carbon contents of China’s exports, which directly resulted that, except the year of1997and1998, the China’s net trade carbon content are positive, and it’s value is increasing, so China has indeed born a enormous pressure from "transfer emissions" while provided a large quantity of goods for the world.Secondly, results of simulated calculation of the carbon emissions embodied in China’s international trade in different years at China’s different skill levels show that, in case China had the same technical level as Japan, Australia and ASEAN, the carbon contents of China’s exports and imports were decreased, and the higher its technical level was, the lower the net trade carbon content was, in addition, except the year of1997, the net trade carbon content had been reduced, and the higher its technical level was, the greater the deducing degree of the net trade carbon content was. Thus, on the one hand, from a global emission reduction targets, as long as China’s technical level has increased, even if it only reach to the same level as ASEAN, global carbon emissions can also be reduced to a certain extent; on the other hand, even China import from countries which have the more developed technology and higher energy efficiency than China’s existing importing country, China’s net trade carbon content can also be reduced under different levels of carbon, in this sense, global emission reduction goal with China’s emission reduction goal are not in conflict.Thirdly, results of calculating the carbon emissions embodied in trade by China with countries of different economic development level showed that: for one thing, the complete carbon emission factor of all countries has been decreased, but the complete carbon emission factor of the developed countries was significantly lower than China, and the complete carbon emission factor of China and other developing countries had some similarities; Secondly, the net trade carbon content for China to the developed countries continued to be positive, and showed an increasing trend, but trade with developing countries haven’t made big effect on China’s carbon emissions; Moreover, from the perspective of carbon emissions, the environmental terms of trade for China to the developed countries is unfavorable, while the environmental terms of trade for China to the developing countries is relatively optimistic.Fourthly, results of structure decomposition show that: three factors, such as the total amount of exports, changes in production technology and export structure has increased the carbon contents of China’s exports to the developed countries, but only changes in total amount of imports increased the carbon contents of China’s imports to the developed countries and promote the conservation of China’s carbon emissions; and results of structure decomposition of China’s embodied trade carbon emissions with developing countries were more optimistic, because only the total amount of exports and changes in production technology increased the carbon contents of China’s exports to the developing countries, and only the changes of the direct emission factor reduced the carbon contents of China’s imports to the developing countries.Fifthly, the empirical results based on time-series data of China and panel data of the developing countries showed that, the level of environmental regulation intensity had a direct negative effect on carbon emissions both in China and the developing countries, weakening the environmental regulations would exacerbate development of the carbon emissions for China and other developing countries; North-South trade is the intermediary variable that environmental regulations affecting the carbon emissions, mediating effect of North-South trade accounted for45.69%of the effects of environmental regulation on China’s carbon emissions, and accounted for25.83%of the effects of environmental regulation on the developing countries’ carbon emissions. In addition, South-South trade is not the intermediary variable that environmental regulations affecting China’s carbon emissions.Finally, the dissertation concluded the main point of views, analyzed the specific negotiating strategies for China to response to international pressure on carbon emission reduction, then put forward some suggestions for China to reduce the net trade carbon content to the developed countries, and pointed out its deficiency and future research prospects.