Embodied greenhouse gas emissions in the international agricultural trade

Abstract

Reducing agricultural greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE) will play an important role in mitigating global climate change. Though previous estimates of agricultural GHGE mainly considered direct emissions from production activities, they ignored the impact of international trade patterns (i.e., indirect intermediate products trade emission) and driving factors analysis. This study quantified the evolution of the emissions embodied in international agricultural trade and identified the key paths and driving factors. The results show that embodied emissions increased from 2597.59 Mt of CO 2 equivalent (Mt CO 2 -eq) in 1995 to 3545.29 Mt CO 2 -eq in 2015 (an increase of 36.5 %). There were significant differences among countries in the GHGE embodied in the export and import trades. Compared with intermediate products, trade in final products affected emissions more significantly, accounting for about 78.3 % of the total GHGE. Increasing international trade has been the main factor responsible for the increased emissions embodied in this trade, but improved emission intensity has reduced the magnitude of the overall increase. The countries with large GHGE embodied in their international agricultural trade need to more rationally plan the development of their agricultural trade structure and reduce GHGE intensity through technological innovation.