“Recalculation of CO2 Emissions Embodied in China’s Import and Export Trade: A Perspective of Value-added Trade”

Xueliu Xu, Dalian University of Technology

Mingjie Mu, Dalian University of Technology

Penghe Yin, Dalian University of Technology

Traditional trade statistic results in a serious deviation of CO2 emissions embodied in international trade with deeper division. We employ WIOD and gross exports’ decomposition to recount CO2 emissions embodied in international trade of China from the perspective of value added trade. The result shows that traditional statistic causes a huge overestimation of 398.77 billion dollars and 504.46 billion dollars for China’s import and export respectively; therefore, 177.24 million tons and 907.636 million tons of carbon emissions have been over calculated. The traditional result has increased the responsibility share of China’s emission reduction. Meanwhile, we compare CO2 emission coefficients of China with that of other countries in case to reveal the reason why carbon emission embodied in export is higher than that in import; however, the excessive emission factors of Chinese sectors is considered as the main reason. Finally, several policy implications are suggested according to the analysis output.