Embodied Emission Intensity Research Articles

Volatile organic compounds emissions embodied in fixed capital formation in China: Gravity movement and decoupling analysis

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emissions have increased rapidly in China, but little is known about the characteristics of VOCs emissions embodied in China's fixed capital formation (FCF). We investigate the VOCs emissions embodied in various FCF categories in the economic sectors of 30 Chinese provincial-level regions using the multi-regional input-output (MRIO) method. The gravity theory is combined with the Shapley decomposition method to uncover the gravity movement of embodied VOCs emissions in FCF and regional contributions behind. Besides, the Tapio decoupling index is combined with the logarithmic mean Divisia index (LMDI) method to identify the key drivers of decoupling between embodied VOCs emissions and embodied added value driven by FCF. The results indicate that China's embodied VOCs emissions in FCF increased by 10.9% during 2012–2015 and decreased by 4.2% during 2015–2017. Over 2012–2017, the gravity center of embodied VOCs emissions in gross FCF shifted to the southwest region, with the northwestern and northeastern regions acting as the main engines for the gravity shift. There is a weak decoupling between embodied VOCs emissions and embodied added value in gross FCF. Investment scale and embodied investment efficiency largely inhibit the decoupling, while embodied energy intensity largely promotes the decoupling. Accordingly, we suggest that the northeastern region and northwestern region should be the main targets for VOCs emissions reduction. As such, investment scale, embodied investment efficiency, and embodied emission intensity in FCF should be optimized.

Reassessing the embodied carbon emissions in China's foreign trade: a new perspective from the export routes based on the global value chain.

A new route perspective measure based on the global value chain (GVC) distinguishes the embodied emission transfer destinations while concurrently considering the transfer process and GVC embedding position. This study applies this measure to reassess the characteristics of China's foreign trade embodied emissions and their impacts on global emissions. The results show that: (1) China's domestic embodied emission exports are mainly concentrated in manufacturing and dominated by final goods exports and simple GVC routes. China primarily imports foreign emissions via simple GVC routes. (2) The embodied emission intensity of China's exports is much higher than that of its imports, and China's expansion in imports indirectly promoted global emission reduction. (3) China's foreign trade increases global emissions with a waning trend, while GVC-related trade reduces global emissions. Additionally, it is feasible to reduce global emissions by adjusting China's bilateral trade structures with different countries. We conclude that China's GVC-related trade has increased, but exports through complex GVC tend to be the resource-input type. We emphasize that China needs to actively participate in globalization and upgrade its GVC to step off the low-end locking predicament in global production and cope with the multiple pressures of global and domestic emission reduction and stable development.

Patterns and drivers of embodied carbon intensity in international exports: The role of trade and environmental policies

International production fragmentation has generated and reallocated value added as well as CO2 emissions across economies. Prior studies have mainly focused on the embodied emissions or value added in trade. The evidence regarding the embodied emission intensity, and particularly the role of policies, however, remains sketchy. This paper investigates the role of trade and environmental policies in embodiment flows by combining input-output analysis and the gravity model of trade, covering 43 economies over 2000–2014. First, we derive the domestic carbon and value-added contents of bilateral exports in an input-output framework, and find a declining trend in emission intensity in exports. Second, we use the gravity model to examine the determinants of trends in both flows, and further infer the combined effects on intensity. The results show that an open trade policy can lower emission intensity in exports by facilitating the selection of products that are higher in value-added but less emission-intensive. Economies with more stringent environmental policies have a lower emission intensity in exports, but a higher emission intensity in their imports, which suggests carbon leakage. Effective global climate mitigation will require a closer look at the emission intensity in exports and collective action to address the detrimental effects of carbon leakage.

Input-output analysis of embodied emissions: Impacts of imports data treatment on emission drivers

Input-output (I-O) analysis has been widely used in embodied emission studies. For country-level analysis, the non-competitive imports assumption is generally preferred. However, national I-O tables with the non-competitive imports assumption are often not available. In empirical studies, the uniform imports share approach is usually adopted to give the estimated tables from the I-O tables with the competitive imports assumption. When data are available for two different years, structural decomposition analysis (SDA) can be applied to study the drivers of the embodied emission changes. We propose a SDA framework with two imports effects, i.e. input imports effect and demand imports effect, to evaluate the impacts of imports data treatment on the drivers. An empirical study using China's latest I-O datasets, for 2017 and 2018, show that the impacts are not significant at the national level but are significant at the sectoral level. For the latter, the impacts on sectoral embodied emission intensity range from −5% to 16%, while on sectoral embodied emissions range from −8% to 35%. Sectoral aggregate embodied intensity (AEI) indicators are found to be more robust to the imports data treatments than sectoral embodied emission intensity. In some cases a change in the sign of the input imports effect or demand imports effect is observed, which leads to opposite outcomes. Implications of the findings on embodied emission studies and the role of imports are discussed.

Demand contributors and driving factors of Singapore’s aggregate carbon intensities

Singapore is an island city state. It lacks conventional energy resources and is alternative energy disadvantaged. Yet its aggregate carbon intensity, given by the ratio of carbon emissions to GDP, dropped by 30% from 2005 to 2014. Currently it has a relatively low carbon intensity. Using I–O analysis, we study Singapore’s aggregate carbon intensity and the factors contributing to its changes at different levels, i.e. final demand, sector, and transmission levels. It is found that domestic exports accounted for nearly two-thirds of Singapore’s aggregate carbon intensity, followed by private consumption and investment. At the sectoral level, the top three contributors were the petroleum, petrochemical, and land transport sectors. Improvements in emission intensity and final demand structure were major factors contributing to reductions in carbon intensity. Our study contributes to the literature in two aspects. Methodologically, it deals with embodied emission intensity and analyzes its changes from the demand perspective. This differs from most studies in the literature from the production perspective. Empirically, the findings and policy implications are unique as they are applicable to a major city. With urbanization taking place in many developing countries, cites’ role in emissions and environmental sustainability are growing in importance but not many in-depth analyses similar to our study have been reported.

The consumption-based black carbon emissions of China's megacities

A growing body of literature discusses the CO2 emissions of cities. Still, little is known about black carbon (BC), a short-lived warming agent. Identifying the drivers of urban BC emissions is crucial for targeting cleanup efforts. A consumption-based approach enables all emissions to be allocated along the production chain to the product and place of final consumption, whereas a production approach attributes emissions to the place where goods and services are produced. In this study, we calculate the production-based and consumption-based emissions in 2012 in four Chinese megacities: Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Chongqing. The results show that capital formation is the largest contributor, accounting for 37%–69% of consumption-based emissions. Approximately 44% of BC emissions related to goods consumed in Chongqing and more than 60% for Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin occur outside of the city boundary. The large gap between consumption and production-based emissions can be attributed to the great difference in embodied emission intensities. Therefore, collaborative efforts to reduce emission intensity can be effective in mitigating climate change for megacities as either producers or consumers.

China's energy-related mercury emissions: Characteristics, impact of trade and mitigation policies

As the world's largest energy consumer, China contributes significantly to the global atmospheric mercury emissions, a toxic air pollutant with global importance. This study aims to systematically analyze China's energy-related mercury emissions in light of environmentally extended input-output analysis (EEIOA), considering the impact of China's inter-sector connection and external trade. The results reveal that embodied emission intensities of some manufacturing sectors are magnified about 100 times compared with their corresponding direct mercury emission intensities. Generally, the magnified effect of upstream sectors (e.g., Sector Coal Mining) is less remarkable than downstream sectors (e.g., Sector Electric Equipment and Machinery Manufacturing), underlying the effect of inter-sector connection. As for external trade, over a quarter of China's direct mercury emissions from fuel combustion (359.7 tonnes) are attributed to foreign consumption of commodities produced in China, manifesting China's role as world factory. Due to the prominent role of China's processing trade, mercury emissions embodied in re-exports takes a considerable amount of total emissions embodied in China's exports. These findings have implications for China's mercury pollution mitigation policies focusing on different stages in domestic supply chains and responsibilities redistribution of international collaborative mitigation.

Driving forces of rapid CO2 emissions growth: A case of Korea

This study aims to investigate Korea's final demand structure and its impacts on CO2 emissions in order to reduce CO2 emissions and develop environmental policy directions. Based on the environmentally extended input–output model, this study adopts a two-step approach: (1) to estimate the embodied emissions and their intensities for 393 sectors induced by final demand; and (2) to calculate the driving factors of emission growth between 2003 and 2011 and then evaluate the result by using Structural Decomposition Analysis (SDA). The findings of this study demonstrate that the impact of composition change in export with less embodied emission intensities tends to offset the increase in CO2 emission by the export scale growth. The relatively low residential electricity price has resulted in the rapid growth of household electricity consumption and significantly contributed to emissions growth. The result of SDA indicates that Korea's final demand behavior yielded high carbonization over the same period. The findings suggest that Korean government should promote exports in industries with less embedded CO2 in order to protect environments. In addition, emission information of each product and service should be provided for consumers to change their purchase patterns towards contributing to low carbon emissions as active players.

China's non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions: Inventory and input–output analysis

In contrast to the ever-increasing focus on China's CO2 emissions, little attention has been given to its non-CO2 greenhouse gases (GHGs). Based on the latest released official GHG emission data, this paper presents an inventory and embodiment analysis of the non-CO2 GHG emissions covering CH4, N2O, HFCs, PFCs and SF6 by the Chinese economy in 2005. The total direct non-CO2 GHG emissions from economic sectors amount to 1368.5Mt CO2-eq, of which CH4 contributes 848.4Mt, N2O 356.8Mt and F-GHGs 163.3Mt. Responsible for 93.2% of the total emissions are the three sectors of Agriculture, Coal Mining and Dressing and Chemicals. Exports, urban consumption and capital formation derive the major fractions of embodied emissions for final demand. Rural and urban consumption are both non-CO2 GHG emission intensive, having the largest embodied emission intensities among all final demand categories. The impact of international trade on China's non-CO2 GHG emissions is significant. The total emissions embodied in exports are 487.0Mt CO2-eq, equivalent to 35.6% of the total domestic emissions. Prominently, the re-exported emissions amount to 135.3Mt CO2-eq due to the processing trade. Textile and Garments and Other Fiber Products, Leather, Furs, Down and Related Products are the top two net embodied emission export sectors. While China's non-CO2 GHG emissions are expected to increase steadily in the future, both the direct emissions from on site production and the embodied emissions induced by final consumption and international trade need to be addressed and targeted to inform effective mitigation policies.

Embodied greenhouse gas emission by Macao

Comprehensive inventory of cities' greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) is the basis for cities to make appropriate mitigation plans. However, previous studies on cities' GHG emissions consider emissions occurring within the city boundary (Scope 1) and out of boundary electricity emissions (Scope 2), but neglect indirect emissions associated with commodities consumed by cities (Scope 3), resulting in emission leakage. To cope with this problem, a systematic accounting covering all 3 scopes is presented in a case study of Macao for the years 2005–2009, based on the latest embodied emission intensity databases for China and for the world. The results show that total emissions are dominated by indirect emissions mainly embodied in imports, which is 3–4 times direct emissions during the period concerned. It is verified that accounting under Scopes 1 and 2 cannot capture the full picture of cities' emissions, especially cities like Macao which are dominated by service industry and inevitably sustained by massive materials and services from other regions. Our study suggests that Macao should adjust its current GHG mitigation policies which consider only its emissions occurring within its border, as Macao is a net GHG emissions importer. This work is the first assessment of Macao's embodied GHG emissions.

Understanding embodied greenhouse gas emissions in the water and sewerage sectors

AbstractEmbodied (or embedded) greenhouse gas emissions are commonly overlooked in corporate carbon accounting, although they can represent a large proportion of overall emissions. In this paper, we utilise embodied emission data submitted to Ofwat, the economic regulator of water and sewerage companies in England and Wales, as part of their review of price limits. This is the first time that water and sewerage companies have presented embodied emissions associated with their capital programmes. In total, embodied emissions add an extra 50% on top of companies' operational greenhouse gas emissions. We consider the drivers for embodied emissions and show that capital maintenance programmes are the largest source. We highlight the relationship between capital expenditure and embodied emissions, and discuss why there are significant differences in embodied emission intensities between companies. Many of the differences arise from the way the common methodology for estimating embodied emissions is applied.

Embodied carbon dioxide emission at supra-national scale: A coalition analysis for G7, BRIC, and the rest of the world

Presented in this study is an empirical analysis of embodied carbon dioxide emissions induced by fossil fuel combustion for the world divided into three supra-national coalitions, i.e., G7, BRIC, and the rest of the world (ROW), via the application of a multi-region input–output modeling for 2004. Embodied emission intensities for the three coalitions are calculated and compared, with market exchange rate and purchase power parity separately used to investigate the difference between nominal and real production efficiencies. Emissions embodied in different economic activities such as production, consumption, import, and export are calculated and analyzed accordingly, and remarkable carbon trade imbalances associated with G7 (surplus of 1.53 billion tons, or 36% its traded emissions) and BRIC (deficit of 1.37 billion tons, or 51% its traded emissions) and approximate balance with ROW (deficit of 0.16 billion tons, or 3% its traded emissions) are concretely revealed. Carbon leakages associated with industry transfer and international trades are illustrated in terms of impacts on global climate policies. The last but not least, per capita consumption based emissions for G7, BRIC, and ROW are determined as 12.95, 1.53, and 2.22 tons, respectively, and flexible abatement policies as well as equity on per capita entitlement are discussed.