Research On The Environmental Consequence Of Inernational Trade In China: Based On Carbon Emissions

In recent years, China's economy has a rapid growth, but is highly dependent on the natural resource and environment, the ability of scientific and technical innovation is weak and the industrial structure is not reasonable. All of these problems are intensified by the international trade. In December 2009, the United Nations Climate Change Conference took place in Copenhagen and world leaders and environmentalists advocate saving energy and reducing emissions in order to stop the detrimental effects of global warming. Kyoto Protocol will expire in 2012 and the developing countries will take the responsibilities of reducing the emissions, which means that China must change the extensive growth mode of economy and trade in order to deal with the emission-reducing pressure. The 12th Five Year Planning also emphasizes the importance of stopping the detrimental effects of global warming.Based on the above practical background, this paper investigates how openness to international markets affects carbon emissions to assess the environmental consequences of international trade, using qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis as a combination of research methods. This paper established the mechanism of international trade affecting environment. Combined with emission factor analysis, input-output analysis and the knowledge of econometrics, this paper illustrates the current situation of the international trade and environment of China and systematically investigates how the international trade affects China's environment.This paper is divided into six chapters. The main contents of the six parts are summarized as follows:Introduction Chapter I briefly introduces the study background, contents and methods and systematically reviews the related research of the issue of international trade and environment.Chapter II is the theoretical foundation for this paper, which defines the concept and classification of the environmental effects of international trade. Based on the general equilibrium, this paper established the mechanism of international trade affecting environment using the general equilibrium analysis which is widely used in the theory of international trade. Then the cause of conflict between international trade and environment is explained using the partial equilibrium analysis. In addition, the Hypothesis of Pollution Haven, Theory of Environmental Factor Endowment and the Environmental Kuznets Curve are briefly introduced, which set a theoretical foundation for the research of this paper.Chapter III analyzes the current situation of China's environmental effects of international trade. Firstly, China's current situation of international trade is briefly introduced. After evaluating the carbon emissions, this paper analyzes the current situation of environment from the perspective of carbon emissions. Finally, it assesses the environmental consequences of international trade, using qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis as a combination of research methods.Chapter IV is the focus of this paper analyzing the environmental consequence of international trade. It respectively evaluates embodied emissions from domestic production, embodied emissions from domestic consumption, emissions embodied within export products and emissions embodied within import products to asses the level of the environmental impact of international trade. And then it develops an econometric model to study how international trade affects China's environment. The empirical analysis indicates that the"carbon leakage"from developed countries is the important reason resulted in the increase of China's carbon emissions and international trade has a harmful impact on environment by negative composition effect, scale effect and income effect.Chapter V mainly introduces the measures taken to harmonize the development of international trade and the environmental protection. The measures and suggestions mainly include pushing forward the carbon trading market, accelerating transformation of the mode of economic development in order to achieve the environment-friendly growth and changing the consumption concept of all level.