The Research On Embodied Carbon Emission And Low-carbon Trade Policy In China’s Foreign Trade

Nowadays, each country attaches great importance to the climate problem whichis a big challenge we have to face, and regards carbon or other greenhouse gasemission reduction plan as an effective measure to mitigate climate changes.However, in times of economy globalization, we cannot ignore the fact of thetransfer of pollution caused by free trade. This paper aims to quantitative analysis ofthe figures and impacts of the implied carbon emissions in the international trade, sothat we can have a correct understanding of the international trade to China’senvironmental impacts, therefore, it’s become a strong basis for the adjustment oftrade structure and the transformation of economic growth.Based on the input-output model, this essay takes the implied carbon in China’sinternational trade as the research object, and calculates its amount in2002,2005,2007and2010, then the results show that: the amount of China’s carbonemissions in export trade has increased from1.1billion tons in2002to2.91billiontons in2007, then it reached2.71billion tons in2010after a slight decline; however,the amount of carbon emission in import trade has been on an upward trend, rising to1.15billion tons in2010from the0.49billion tons in2002. So the amount of thecarbon emissions in China’s export trade is much higher than it in import trade. Byanalyzing China’s carbon emissions responsibility under these two different systems,we find that the present policy we used is the production responsibility system, andthe trade activities lead to the fact that we have born a large part of this responsibilityon behalf of other countries. When we analysis from industry we can see,manufacturing industries like the chemical industry, metal smelting and rollingprocessing industry, communications equipment, computers and other electronicequipment manufacturing,has a dominant position in China’s export, contrary, theservice sector with lower carbon emissions accounted for a relatively small share ofChina’s export; even though the industry with high carbon emission accounted for a higher proportion of the import trade, compared to the scale of exports, imports’scale is still relatively small, leading to the most sectors in a state of net exporter ofcarbon, especially as the chemical industry, metal smelting and rolling processingindustry, communications equipment, computers and other electronic equipmentmanufacturing and other heavy industry, indicates that China is still at a disadvantagein international trade,and we should optimize the trade structure.To analyze the factors of implied carbon in international trade,this article usesLMDI index method and divides the factors into scale effect,structureeffect andintensityeffect.The result shows that: the effect of scale is the decisive factor causingthe increase of embodied carbon emission in China’s imports and exports. As theexpanding of China’s trade scale, the amount of carbon emission is also growing,while the effect of intensity is the major factor to inhibit carbon emission. Althoughthe increasing of energy efficiency and improving of production techniques canreduce the carbon emission, it cannot offset the influence of scale effect. And thestructural effect has a positive role on the carbon emission, but its impact is far lessthan the scale and intensity effect, so our trade structure does not play its role inreducing carbon emission, still has to be improved and upgraded.Based on these findings, this essay gives some proposals to prosecutelow-carbon trade, including energy structure adjustment, trade structure adjustment,industrial restructuring, strengthening of international negotiations and reachinginternational cooperation, etc., to guide China’s international trade to the pathwaysfor low carbon development.