The transfer of embodied carbon in copper international trade: An industry chain perspective

The rapid development of the international mineral trade has provided a solid material foundation for economic developments worldwide. Accompanying mineral international trade, there is a huge amount of carbon emission transferred from importing countries to exporting countries, which masks the true distribution of global carbon emission and blurs the lines about the responsibility for preserving the environment. Aiming to explore the embodied carbon emissions, we construct an embodied carbon emissions network of copper concentrates and refined copper international trade (ECCR) for each year during the sample period from 2007 to 2014. We analyze structure features of ECCR international trade. There exists a large amount of potential transfer of carbon emissions. The external dependency on copper concentrates of China is not so high. The trade volume shows that China, Germany and the United States are net importers, Chile, Peru and Zambia are net exporters. Moreover, the trade volumes of main countries change within a narrow range. Considering that the changes of ECCR international trade, energy policies or emergencies are main factors to resources-oriented countries, sudden global economic events are main factors to importers. Combined with the economy of every country, we also analyze the embodied carbon intensity, which are significantly different of distinct type's countries. Furthermore, the evolution rule of embodied carbon intensity of some developed countries is similar to some developing countries.