China's provincial CO ₂ emissions embodied in international and interprovincial trade

Trades create a mechanism of embodied CO ₂ emissions transfer among regions, causing distortion on the total emissions. As the world's second largest economy, China has a large scale of trade, which results in the serious problem of embodied CO ₂ emissions transfer. This paper analyzes the characteristics of China's CO ₂ emissions embodied in international and interprovincial trade from the provincial perspective. The multi-regional Input-Output Model is used to clarify provincial CO ₂ emissions from geographical and sectoral dimensions, including 30 provinces and 28 sectors. Two calculating principles (production accounting principle and consumption accounting principle, Munksgaard and Pedersen, 2001) are applied. The results show that for international trade, the eastern area accounts for a large proportion in China's embodied CO ₂ emissions. The sectors as net exporters and importers of embodied CO ₂ emissions belong to labor-intensive and energy-intensive industries, respectively. For interprovincial trade, the net transfer of embodied CO ₂ emissions is from the eastern area to the central area, and energy-intensive industries are the main contributors. With the largest amount of direct CO ₂ emissions, the eastern area plays an important role in CO ₂ emissions reduction. The central and western areas need supportive policies to avoid the transfer of industries with high emissions.