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How does “the Belt and Road” and the Sino-US trade conflict affect global and Chinese CO2 emissions?

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Abstract

In the context of the rapid development of the Belt and Road (B&R) Initiative, the continuous transfer of Sino-US trade to the B&R countries is an important means to mitigate the threat of Sino-US trade, and the environmental impact of this transfer should be considered, so as to provide a scientific basis for China’s policy formulation about achieving this possible trade transfer with minimized environmental impacts. This study proposes a multiregional input-output model and analyzes the impact on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of transferring the Sino-US trade to the B&R countries for two types of scenarios. The results show the following: (1) A transfer of either the import trade or the export trade increases global and Chinese CO2 emissions by 81.76 Mt and 24.84 Mt, respectively. When both the import trade and export trade are transferred, the increases in CO2 emissions are only 0.22% and 0.26%, respectively. (2) Globally, the changes in international trade-embodied CO2 emissions are responsible for most of the global emission changes, especially the CO2 emissions exported from Russia, India, and many Southeast Asian countries to China. (3) Different from the impact on global emissions, the increases in Chinese domestic production-based CO2 emissions influence China’s total CO2 emissions. Due to the imported CO2 emissions, the consumption-based CO2 emissions are affected to a greater degree and increase by 70.30 Mt, accounting for only 0.86% of the CO2 emissions in 2015. Finally, some policy implications are proposed.

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Notes

  1. When producing a certain product, the sum of the direct and indirect CO2 dioxide emitted in the entire production chain.

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Funding

This study was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant (no. 71874193, 71503249, 71203008), the Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research (no. CBA2018-02MY-Fan), Young Elite Scientists Sponsorship Program by CAST (no. 2016QNRC001), Beijing Excellent Talent Program (no. 2015000020124G122), and the Open Research Project of State Key Laboratory of Coal Resources and Safe Mining (China University of Mining and Technology) (no. SKLCRSM19KFA14).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Sustainable Development and Energy Policy Research (SDEP), School of Energy and Mining Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology, Beijing (CUMTB), Beijing, 100083, China

    Jing-Li Fan & Yangyang Dong

  2. State Key Laboratory of Coal Resources and Safe Mining, China University of Mining and Technology, Beijing, 100083, China

    Jing-Li Fan

  3. Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, 100081, China

    Jing-Li Fan

  4. The Administrative Centre for China’s Agenda 21 (ACCA21), Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), Beijing, 100038, China

    Xian Zhang

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  1. Jing-Li Fan
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Correspondence to Xian Zhang.

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Appendix

Appendix

Table 1 Countries and short form referred to in this article
Full size table
Table 2 The full name and shortened form of 26 sectors in EORA input-output table
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Table 3 The full name and shortened form of final demand category in EORA input-output table
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Fan, JL., Dong, Y. & Zhang, X. How does “the Belt and Road” and the Sino-US trade conflict affect global and Chinese CO2 emissions?. Environ Sci Pollut Res 27, 38715–38731 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-09935-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-09935-2

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