The changing role of global value chains in CO2 emission intensity in 2000–2014

Abstract

The growing and transiting global value chains (GVCs) have largely reshaped the economic landscape as well as CO2 emissions of countries. Decoupling GVCs from emissions is essential to achieving the global climate goal. A fundamental question is to understand the changing role of GVCs in global CO2 emissions. To this end, we propose a multi-region structural decomposition analysis model to quantify the impacts of GVCs on global and national emission intensities. The structural changes in GVCs are further characterized by three aspects, i.e. the GVC production linkages, regional and sectoral structures of GVC sourcing. Applying the proposed methodology to the global multi-region input-output tables for 2000–2014 shows that GVCs were much more emission intensive than domestic production during this period. Nevertheless, GVCs were the sole force improving global emission intensity, stemming mainly from contributions by emerging economies as well as service and manufacturing sectors. The sectoral structure of GVC sourcing was a main contributor to the improvement, while the regional structure of GVC sourcing and GVC production linkages hindered the procedure. Finally, GVC impacts on emission intensities varied before and after the 2008 economic crisis.