China’s Air Pollutant Emission Embodied In International Trade

With the fast growth of its international trade and energy use, impacts of China’sinternational trade on environment have been widely studied. On the aspect of climatechange, China’s scale-up global trade would not only increase its CO2emission, butalso attenuate worldwide GHG-control efficiency. However, systematic studies ofinfluences of China’s international trade on air pollutant emission remain challenges.With environmental input-output analysis and structural decomposition analysis, aswell as a recent bottom-up China’s air pollutant emission inventory including detailedpollution control information, this study calculated the SO2、NOx、PM2.5and VOCemissions embodied in China’s international trade in the year of1997,2000,2002,2005and2007. It showed, in2007, SO2, NOx, PM2.5and VOC emissions embodied inChina’s export were934×104t,718×104t,247×104t and493×104t respectively, whichtook up29%,29%,19%and24%of their national emissions respectively, and SO2,NOx, PM2.5and VOC emissions embodied in China’s import were247×104t,163×104t,49×104t and248×104t respectively. China had a large trade-associated air pollutantemission deficit. From1997to2007, SO2, NOx, PM2.5and VOC emissions embodied inChina’s export had increased142%,222%,82%and199%respectively. Scale-upexport quantity and production structure change accounted for most of the emissiongrowth, while the decrease of energy intensity as well as pollution controls of powerplant and cement industry attenuated the growth of emissions in export.Although electrical and mechanical manufactures, the main items of China’s export,had lower emission intensities than the overall exports, China should continue to reducehigh emission intensive exports, such as steel, plastic, chemicals, minerals and textile,and to increase low emission intensive exports, such as precision instrument. Meanwhile,China should continue to control the air emission from the industries of power plant,cement, coke, oil and metal with economic measures like pollution tax or cap and trade.