- Title
- CO₂ embodiment in China-Australia trade: the drivers and implications
- Creator
- Tan, Hao; Sun, Aijun; Lau, Henry
- Relation
- Energy Policy Vol. 61, p. 1212-1220
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2013.06.048
- Publisher
- Elsevier
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2013
- Description
- This study focuses on CO₂ emissions 'embodied' in the characteristic China-Australia bilateral trade, which refer to the CO₂ emissions due to the production of goods traded between the two countries. We perform an assessment of the CO₂ embodiment in the trade during the period between 2002 and 2010. We find that the scale effect has been a dominant effect contributing to an increase of CO₂ emissions embodied in the bilateral trade through the years; while the composition effect seems to be a major driver for reducing CO₂ embodiment in the exports of Australia to China. Based on an analysis of the difference between the amounts of actual CO₂ embodiment and those in a hypothetical 'no-trade' scenario, we estimate that the 'net' CO₂ emissions due to the bilateral trade declined from around 10Mt of CO emissions in 2002 to -10Mt in 2010; that is, the bilateral trade contributed to a reduction of the global carbon emissions in the recent years. This finding suggests that the rapid growth of exports of carbon-intensive goods from Australia to China has helped in reducing carbon emissions globally because carbon intensity factors of those goods are much lower in Australia than those in China.
- Subject
- index decomposition analysis; pollution havens hypothesis; China–Australia free trade agreement (FTA)
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1301369
- Identifier
- uon:20271
- Identifier
- ISSN:0301-4215
- Language
- eng
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