Analysis of CO2 emissions embodied in China's bilateral trade: a non-competitive import input-output approach

CO2 emissions embodied in international trade are critical to the national carbon mitigation strategy. Studies estimating embodied CO2 emissions in China often overestimate actual values. This work calculates China's CO2 emissions embodied in bilateral trade with the USA, European Union, Japan and other countries using a modified, non-competitive import input-output method and latest data. The results show that net CO2 emissions embodied in China's trade in 2007 were only 400 million tons, much lower than previous estimations. Accordingly, China's CO2 emission on the consumption side in 2007 dropped to 5.628 billion tons, with the transfer part accounting for 6.6% of total CO2 emissions calculated for the production side. It is concluded that because CO2 emissions embodied in trade are not as great as previously estimated, China should place more emphases on energy saving and emission reduction on its own side instead of emission transfer to substantially mitigate CO2 emissions.