Economic Input-Output Analysis of China's CO2 Emissions

Abstract

China, as the biggest GHG emitter and the largest developing country, has been urged by international society to take responsibilities for reducing GHG, especially in the post-Kyoto commitment period. Currently, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) assigns the responsibility to parties who produce the GHG, using the production-based GHG emissions inventories. However, some scholars argue that if consumption-based GHG emissions inventories were used, China would be less responsible for GHG emissions because GHG emissions embedded in exporting products directly contribute to its total emissions. This paper analyzes China’s CO2 emissions in 2007 using Economic Input-Output (EIO) method, and finds that China’s domestic emissions make up a large proportion of total emissions, and export-embodied emissions accounts for 15% of domestic emissions. What’s more, results of production-based accounting method are different from results of consumption-based accounting method. These two different methods mainly impact the emissions from regions that belong to eastern China. If China attempts to implement environmental policies to achieve the emissions reduction target, different regional characteristics need to be considered.