CO2 emission clusters within global supply chain networks: Implications for climate change mitigation

Production and consumption of goods and services are interlinked through complex global supply-chain networks; so are the greenhouse gas emissions associated with them. Using a model that represents global supply-chain networks, we identified supply-chain clusters with high CO2 emissions within more than 300 million individual supply chains. We distinguished 4756 significant CO2 clusters and found that in 2008, global supply-chain networks associated with U.S. transport equipment and construction demand included relatively large CO2 clusters in China, accounting for 17% and 10%, respectively, of the U.S. CO2 footprint. Of added importance is the fact that these two clusters in China had annual growth rates of 42% and 58%, respectively, during the period 1995-2008. Our results show the importance for climate policy of monitoring these CO2 clusters that dominate CO2 emissions in global supply chains, and they offer insights on where climate policy can be effectively directed.