Extended Carbon Footprint And Emission Transfer Of World Regions: With Both Primary And Intermediate Inputs Into Account

By combining the latest statistics for the global economy in 2015, this study as a continuation of our previous work (Wu et al., 2020) investigates the extended carbon footprint of world regions and the emission transfer via commodity trade, by including both primary and intermediate inputs into consideration. The extended carbon footprint of the United States is revealed to be one and a half times as much as that of China, while this ratio is accounted as three quarters in our previous work, due to that final consumption takes a much larger share of the gross domestic product in the United States compared to the situation in China. CO2 emissions embodied in the primary inputs of the world economy are calculated to be equivalent to 42% of the emissions embodied in the genuine final consumption, highlighting the key role of capital goods in reallocating global carbon emissions. Moreover, emission transfer related with international commodity trade is explored, and the carbon trade links between major economies such as the United States, China, European Union, Russia, India and Japan are discussed in detail. In particular, the geographic and sectoral profiles for the carbon trade of the United States and China as two distinct economies are illustrated. It is revealed that Asia Pacific holds responsible for approximately half of the United States' carbon imports as well as China's carbon exports. Meanwhile, transport industry is taking up around one third of the United States' carbon exports while heavy and light industries totally dominate China's carbon exports. The outcome of this work may be supportive for providing more inclusive information regarding the establishment of global warming regimes, and may help us seek more informed policy choices and trade measures in global trade negotiations. (C) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.