The Context Of Low-carbon Economy Changes In The Structure Of China's Foreign Trade

With the rapid growth of world economy and increasing greenhouse gas emissions, developing low-carbon economy has become the consensus of the world. China has also timely proposed to develop low-carbon economy which is consistent with our national conditions. Especially after the great impact of the financial crisis, western countries exert tremendous efforts to promote energy conservation and call for reducing carbon emissions, which practically turned into their new "green trade barriers" and added to their arguments for "China threat theory". Because of our high dependence on foreign trade, our economy is closely related to the world economy. Thus, we are easily influenced by the fluctuations of world economy. And since the international financial crisis induced the recession of world economy and the deterioration of the financial situation, the foreign trade of China has been significantly affected. In this context, the study on carbon emissions of China's foreign trade has some practical significance. By using empirical research methods and input-output model, this article calculates the implied carbon emissions of Chinas foreign trade and their dynamic situations. And then reveals the reasons that led to the change from the aspects of size, structure and technology. Thus, provided data support which used to define the actual carbon dioxide emissions in China. On this basis, with foreign trade policy in different periods, this article makes practical policy recommendations to ease the pressure on Chinas carbon emissions from the perspective of foreign trade.This paper is divided into three parts: introduction, body and conclusion.Part one is introduction, briefly introduces the background and practical significance and summers up the relevant studies about carbon emissions implied in foreign trade both home and abroad. The purpose of this study and research methods have also been introduced in this part.Part two is the body of this paper. It calculates implied carbon emissions in China's foreign trade from 2002 to 2007 and conducted factor decomposition. From the results of the analysis, the net exports of implied in carbon emissions grew faster from 2003 to 2007, which proved that while foreign consumers are enjoying the our products in the process of foreign trade, carbon dioxide emissions in production has resulted in the increase of carbon emissions and environmental pollution in China. And what is even more unfair is that the Chinese on the one hand solely bear the results of environmental pollution, and on the other hand, they suffer the great emissions reduction pressure imposed by the international community. Analysis from the results of decomposition revealed that the scale effect is positive, but structural effects and technology effects have made tremendous change. This article analyzes the causes of variation in implied carbon emissions of Chinas foreign trade. As a result, Unreasonable trade patterns and structures, irrational commodity structure and energy consumption structure, the influence of"transfer emissions"problem and"carbon tariff"green trade barriers are all main causes. In order to promote low carbon development of China's foreign trade, this article also puts forward countermeasures, specifically speaking, change trade patterns, improve trade structure and trade methods, optimize the product mix and energy consumption structure, carry out green trade growth strategy, establish and improve relevant legal systems, exploit and develop advanced low carbon technologies, build up a "carbon label" system and advocate a fair and reasonable reduction mechanism in the international climate negotiations.Part three is Conclusion. It summarizes the main points of this article, reiterates the causes why Chinas foreign trade structure should change and proposes practical countermeasures. This part also make prospects about the position and direction China could take in the future international climate negotiations.