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Who Should Bear the Cost of China's Carbon Emissions Embodied in Goods for Exports?

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  • Zhongxiang Zhang

    () (East-West Center, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA)

Abstract

China's capital-intensive, export-oriented, spectacular economic growth since launching its open-door policy and economic reforms in late 1978 not only has created jobs and has lifted millions of the Chinese people out of poverty, but also has given rise to unprecedented environmental pollution and CO2 emissions. While estimates of the embedded CO2 emissions in China's trade differ, both single country studies for China and global studies show a hefty chunk of China's CO2 emissions embedded in trade. This portion of CO2 emissions had helped to turn China into the worldÕs largest carbon emitter, and is further widening its gap with the second largest emitter. This raises the issue of who should be responsible for this portion of emissions and bearing the carbon cost of exports. China certainly wants importers to cover some, if not all, of that costs. While China's stance is understandable, this paper has argued from a broad and balanced perspective that if this is pushed too far, it will not help to find solutions to this issue. On the contrary it can be to China's disadvantage for a number of reasons. However, aligning this responsibility with China does not necessarily suggest the sole reliance on domestic actions. In that context, the paper recommends specific actions that need to be taken internationally as well as domestically in order to effectively control the embedded CO2 emissions in China's trade.

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File URL: http://ccep.anu.edu.au/data/2011/pdf/wpapers/CCEP1114Zhang.pdf
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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Centre for Climate Economics & Policy, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University in its series CCEP Working Papers with number 1114.

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Date of creation: Sep 2011
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Handle: RePEc:een:ccepwp:1114

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  1. Shui, Bin & Harriss, Robert C., 2006. "The role of CO2 embodiment in US-China trade," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(18), pages 4063-4068, December.
  2. Aaditya Mattoo & Arvind Subramanian & Dominique van der Mensbrugghe & Jianwu He, 2009. "Reconciling Climate Change and Trade Policy," Working Paper Series WP09-15, Peterson Institute for International Economics.
  3. Weber, Christopher L. & Peters, Glen P. & Guan, Dabo & Hubacek, Klaus, 2008. "The contribution of Chinese exports to climate change," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(9), pages 3572-3577, September.
  4. Zhang, ZhongXiang, 2009. "Multilateral trade measures in a post-2012 climate change regime? What can be taken from the Montreal Protocol and the WTO?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(12), pages 5105-5112, December.
  5. Wyckoff, Andrew W. & Roop, Joseph M., 1994. "The embodiment of carbon in imports of manufactured products : Implications for international agreements on greenhouse gas emissions," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 187-194, March.
  6. Nadim Ahmad & Andrew Wyckoff, 2003. "Carbon Dioxide Emissions Embodied in International Trade of Goods," OECD Science, Technology and Industry Working Papers 2003/15, OECD Publishing.
  7. World Bank, 2010. "World Development Indicators 2010," World Bank Publications, The World Bank, number 4373.
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Cited by:
  1. ZhongXiang Zhang, 2012. "Competitiveness and Leakage Concerns and Border Carbon Adjustments," CCEP Working Papers 1208, Centre for Climate Economics & Policy, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
  2. Qin Bao & Ling Tang & ZhongXiang Zhang & Han Qiao & Shouyang Wang, 2011. "Impacts of Border Carbon Adjustments on China’s Sectoral Emissions: Simulations with a Dynamic Computable General Equilibrium Model," Working Papers 2011.93, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.

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