Environmental and resources footprints between China and EU countries

Abstract

International trade has accelerated the trend of globalization, giving consumers and countries the opportunity to reach new markets and products. However, it also brought negative externalities in the forms of pollution and environmental degradation. Plus, the large amounts of resource flows among different countries may aggravate resource depletion. Thus, it is necessary to uncover the embodied resource flows and corresponding environmental impacts so that sustainable trade policies can be raised. Under such a circumstance, this paper accounts environmental and resources footprints embodied in the China-EU trade for the year of 2008 by employing a multi-regional input-output model, including both the global and sectoral environmental and resource footprints which caused by the trade between China and the EU-27 countries. Research results show that from the global footprints perspective, the total environmental footprints of China and EU countries are 4.73 Gt and 4.53 Gt in 2008, respectively. The total resource footprints of China are 8.19E+07 TJ of energy, 0.66 Bha of land, 14.5 Gt of materials, and 1.47 Tm3 of water, while such figures for EU countries are 1.17E+08 TJ of energy, 0.66 Bha of land, 12.1 Gt of materials, and 1.26 Tm3 of water, respectively. The transfer trend of environmental and resources footprints between China and EU was also analyzed, indicating that EU countries caused 8.21 times of emission footprint than China's, and China provided 6.25 times of energy footprint, 16.76 times of land footprint, 12.26 times of material footprint, and 17.38 times of water footprint for EU countries' final consumption. In addition, the sectoral footprints between China and the five selected EU countries were analyzed. Finally, policy implications from environmental and resources management perspectives are proposed.