Calculation And Impact Factors Of Embodied Carbon On International Trade In Liaoning Province

With the rapid development of world economy, the effects of international trade onenvironment are receiving more and more attention by countries around the world. Theseissues have been the key point of people’s discussion and attention, such as global climaticwarming resulting from greenhouse gas emissions and the environmental pollutionproblems because of energy consumption. How to reduce carbon emissions? And how todeal with a low carbon economy globalization’s hitting? It is the most important task facedby our country for today and a very long time period in the future. Our country is a tradingnation and a main carbon emissions country as well. And as our country’s traditional heavyindustrial base, the economic growth in Liaoning province has been highly dependent onenergy consumption all these years. In recent years, the import and export trade inLiaoning province is keeping growing steady and rapidly. But with Liaoning province’smassive exports of products, Liaoning province also exports a great amount of embodiedcarbon emissions. Climate warming and carbon tariffs planed by developed countries bringto the trade development dual pressures. In order to realize the sustainable development ofimport and export trade, and actively respond to and strive to achieve China’s carbonemissions reduction targets, exploring the trail for a low-carbon trade and the way toreduce carbon emissions have become the inevitable choice for us.First of all, this paper introduces the research status related to embodied carbonemissions at home and abroad. And it also introduces the related concepts and theoreticalbasis of embodied carbon in international trade. Then it introduces the present situation ofthe import and export trade in Liaoning province, it also analyzes the current situation ofcarbon emissions in Liaoning province. Then by using the input-output method, this paperanalyzes empirically the embodied carbon emissions of Liaoning province’s import andexport trade. It makes a calculation on the amount of embodied carbon emissions ofLiaoning province’s import and export trade in1997,2002,2007and2012. And it makesanalysis of the results at two levels: the total amount level and industry level. Then combined with KAYA equation and LMDI decomposition method, it decomposes theInfluence factors on the measuring result of the embodied carbon emissions of Liaoningprovince’s import and export trade. The influence factors of embodied carbon emissionscan be decomposed into trade scale effect, trade structure effect and technology effect. Andrespectively from the viewpoint of import and export trade, it makes impact factorsanalysis on the changes of embodied carbon emissions at two levels: the total amount leveland industry level.At the end, on the basis of the above theoretical content and the empirical analysis,this paper comes to a conclusion: Liaoning province is a net exporter of embodied carbon.The embodied carbon emissions in different industries are quite different. And through theLMDI decomposition method, the expansion of trade is the main factor that increased theembodied carbon emissions of import and export trade. The development of technology isthe main factor that decreased the embodied carbon emissions of import and export trade.Trade structure effect plays a limited role and has a great room for improvement; theoptimized trade structure can restrain the growth of embodied carbon emissions.