Abstract
The impact of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) on the environment is an important but controversial topic. But assessing it faces a significant challenge for separating its policy impact from the overall effect of economic development that will also have environmental impacts. This paper attempts to provide an evolutionary and counterfactual baseline to evaluate the environmental impact of BRI, based on the distribution dynamics approach and the mobility probability plots (MPPs). Our estimation results suggest that while the majority of BRI economies will lower their emission levels compared with the world average, there are significant differences between BRI and non-BRI countrie’s emission patterns and dynamics. The majority of non-BRI economies will have lower emission levels than their BRI counterparts in the absence of BRI policy, indicating that the difference in future emissions between BRI and non-BRI countries should not be completely attributed to the environmental impact of BRI. Instead, BRI should take measures to prevent certain countries from moving upwards energy intensity paths through policy intervention, international cooperation, and an inclusive project assessment process.
Highlights
The impact of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) on the environment has been a controversial topic
This paper attempts to provide an evolutionary and counterfactual baseline to evaluate the environmental impact of BRI, based on the distribution dynamics approach and the mobility probability plots (MPPs)
This paper attempts to provide a counterfactual baseline to evaluate the environmental impact of BRI
Summary
The international community is concerned that the BRI may worsen the environmental performance of participating countries due to the relocation of China’s “outdated industries” to these countries (Han et al, 2018), the ecological impact of infrastructure building, emissions from productive activities, and lock into fossil-fuel dependency (Ascensão et al, 2018; Magazzino and Mele, 2020). The prevailing criticism of BRI based on industry relocation highlights the importance of a counterfactual baseline in the debates on BRI’s environmental consequences. The relocation creates win-win outcomes for both the outsourcing countries and the receiving countries as an “outdated” industry in Japan was still very advanced in China by that time (Han et al, 2018). This paper attempts to provide a counterfactual baseline to evaluate the environmental impact of BRI.
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