The Potential Influence Of Carbon Tariffs On Sino-US Trade In Agricultural Products

The General Assembly of the related United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen Conference has shifted the international community towards a consensus on the development of a low-carbon global economy. As the ecological civilization construction has been put in the overall distribution at the18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. Carbon tariffs have been the commanding heights for those developed counties as the European nations and the United States. The United States has passed climate legislation to impose additional carbon tariffs on the countries who will not fulfill their obligations of emissions reduction in2020.With the development of mechanization and modernization, China’s agriculture has gradually become high carbon agriculture, namely high emissions, high pollution, high energy consumption and high material consumptions. The carbon tariffs may change the trading tendency of the agricultural products among China and the United States.After analyzing on the trading data of agricultural products among China and the United States from the UN COMTRADE database, this thesis concludes that from2001to2012, total agricultural trade amount between China and the United States tends to be steady grow-up, including the growth of both export and import of agricultural products from the United States. China’s exported agricultural products to the USA mainly include aquatic products, fruit, vegetable products and other labor-intensive products; while the imported agricultural products mainly include soybean, animal husbandry product, furs&leather and cotton. Although the agricultural trade between China and the USA are optimistic, under the background of low carbon economy, carbon emissions in the process of our agricultural production could become a big obstacle to a sustainable development of China’s agricultural trade with the United States.Therefore, the quantity of implicit carbon emission is to be calculated based on the Input-output method, which result in that China’s exports implicit carbon emission is on the rise and the net carbon emissions is positive from2001to2009. At the same time, America’s carbon emissions coefficient is smaller than that of China. Thus, conclusions are to be made as:The increased implicit carbon emission will become the important evidence of carbon tariffs; Due to net carbon emissions is positive, carbon emissions coefficient of the United States is smaller; Assuming of a same tax standard of the carbon tariffs in the two countries, China’s agricultural products trade will be more disadvantage than that of the United States. This thesis analyzes the potential impact of carbon tariff on the trade of agricultural products between China and the USA mainly on two aspects, i.e. the theoretical analysis and modulated analysis. In terms of theoretical analysis, it starts from the Ecological Compensation Theory and Trade Protection Theory respectively, then a further explanation of the impact of carbon tariffs by the figures related to economics. In this paper, the potential influence of carbon tariffs mainly embodied in four aspects:the agricultural product trade, the agricultural structure, agricultural terms of trade between China and the United States, and the level of social welfare in China and the United States. Which originated from the sixth edition database of GTAP and RunGTAP software for simulation and analysis.The GTAP model simulation results that the carbon tariffs go against the sustainable development of agricultural product trade between China and the United States, which coincide with the theoretical analysis. As for China, China’s agricultural exports of agricultural products to the United States will decrease. The most affected agricultural products are wool and silk, and live animals, animal products. Meanwhile, it may promote trade diversion of agricultural products, namely, the amount of main agricultural products exported to other trading partners will increase. China’s imports of agricultural products can also be reduced; the product structure may be changed due to the decrease of output. With the increase of carbon tariffs, China’s terms of trade will constantly be deteriorated; China’s social welfare level will continually decline. As for the United States, its exports and imports will reduce in different degrees, but its influence will be lighter than those of China. In addition, with the increase of carbon tariff quotas, most U.S. agricultural output increases; its terms of trade will be improved slightly; its social welfare level will increase, and the change tendency appears backward u canal. Thus, the carbon tariff would be more beneficial to the United States. In order to prevent China’s agricultural products trade adversely affected, some practical suggestions are put forward, including the adjustment of agricultural trade structure, improvement the environment of agricultural trade, improvement the social welfare level and strengthening the international cooperation, etc.