Empirical Research On Embodied Carbon Emissions Of China's Exports And Impacting Factors

China is the primary emitter of CO2, and also the biggest exporter in the world. In order to clarify the relationship between China's export trade of goods and carbon emissions, the paper estimates the embodied carbon emissions of China's exports and the ratio of it to the total carbon emissions during2006-2009based on the input-output model deducting the imported intermediate inputs, and analyzes the industrial and regional structure respectively. Based on the input-output model and logarithmic mean divisia index, the paper uses structure decomposition analysis to study the impacting factors of China's carbon emissions embodied in exports. They are decomposed into three parts:intensity effect, structure effect and scale effect.It reveals that the embodied carbon emissions of China's exports declined, but it still accounted for a high proportion of total carbon emissions. Industry of machinery, mechanical appliances, electrical equipment and parts thereof, sound recorders, reproducers, and television image exported the maximum embodied carbon emissions, followed by industry of textile, leather and footwear, which was highly correlated with the export value and carbon intensity. The embodied carbon emissions exported to the developed economies were larger than the developing economies, which was bound up with China's participation in the international industrial division of labor. The contribution rate of the intensity effect was112.33%, showing that the decline of industries' carbon intensity was the main reason for the decreased carbon emissions. The scale effect was the second reason, whose contribution rate was-16.47%. The increasing exports added to the carbon emissions, however, the intensity and structure effect decreased the final carbon emissions, so the contribution rate was negative. The structure effect came last, whose contribution rate was4.14%, indicating that the optimized export structure reduced the carbon emissions.First, China should improve the structure of exported commodities, such as accelerating industrial upgrading, setting up higher carbon barriers of export trade and restricting the access of the carbon-intensive foreign investment projects to China. Second, China ought to reduce the embodied carbon emissions of the main export industries (products), for instance, reducing the complete carbon emission intensity of industries and further optimizing the product structure. Third, China is supposed to strengthen the diversification of export markets. Last, China should encourage overseas processing trade, transferring the high energy consumption, high pollution and low-skilled low-end industries or processes abroad.