A synthesis of carbon in international trade

By G. P. Peters, Robbie M. Andrew. 2012

360 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract. In a globalised world, the transfer of carbon between regions, either physically or embodied in production, represents a substantial fraction of global carbon emissions. The resulting emission transfers are important for balancing regional carbon budgets and for understanding the drivers of emissions. In this paper we synthesise current understanding in two parts: (1) CO2 emissions embodied in goods and services that are produced in one country but consumed in others, and (2) carbon physically present in fossil fuels, petroleum-derived products, harvested wood products, crops, and livestock products. We describe the key differences between studies and provide a consistent set of estimates using the same definitions, modelling framework, and consistent data. We find the largest trade flows of carbon in international trade in 2004 were fossil fuels (2673 MtC, 37 % of global emissions), CO2 embodied in traded goods and services (1661 MtC, 22 % of global emissions), crops (522 MtC, 31 % of total harvested crop carbon), petroleum-based products (183 MtC, 50 % of their total production), harvested wood products (149 MtC, 40 % of total roundwood extraction), and livestock products (28 MtC, 22 % of total livestock carbon). We find that for embodied CO2 emissions, estimates from independent studies are robust, and that differences between individual studies are not a reflection of the uncertainty in consumption-based estimates, but rather these differences result from the use of different production-based emissions input data and different definitions for allocating emissions to international trade. After adjusting for these issues, results across independent studies converge to give less uncertainty than previously assumed. For physical carbon flows there are relatively few studies to be synthesised, but differences between existing studies are due to the method of allocating to international trade, with some studies using "apparent consumption" as opposed to "final consumption". While results across studies are sufficiently robust to be used in further applications, more research is needed to understand differences and to harmonise definitions for particular applications.

Subfields: Ecology, Environmental Engineering, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2f2003cfab61f1ea5ad59a07e4e4b1ea54802275

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Citations in the corpus

GLOBAL MULTIREGIONAL INPUT–OUTPUT FRAMEWORKS: AN INTRODUCTION AND OUTLOOK (2013, background): “And in all this, it is indispensable to conduct scientific assessments of what improvements are most crucial and cost-effective for providing more reliable answers to policy questions (Lenzen, 2011; Peters et al., 2012).”
EFFECTS OF SECTOR AGGREGATION ON CO2 MULTIPLIERS IN MULTIREGIONAL INPUT–OUTPUT ANALYSES (2014, background): “…in analyses of the total carbon footprint of households or nations, which is determined not from multipliers alone, 4 Note that this would also require that the environmental extensions are true and equal across all the MRIO models, an assumption that is perhaps more dubious (Peters et al., 2012).”
Consumption-based GHG emission accounting: a UK case study (2013, methodology): “Peters et al. (2012) have found that estimates for embodied CO2 emissions from several independent studies and their models are robust, and that differences between them are predominantly a result of their use of different production-based emissions input data and definitions for allocating…”
Decoupling or delusion? Measuring emissions displacement in foreign trade (2018, background): “It has been suggested that the observed reductions of territorial emissions are largely the result of displacement rather than examples of real decoupling (Davis et al., 2010; Aichele and Felbermayr, 2015; Peters et al., 2012; Baiocchi and Minx, 2010).”
Consumption‐based carbon accounting: does it have a future? (2017, methodology): “Following this line of thinking, Peters et al.9 also argue that while the PB accounting approach may currently benefit economic growth in developing countries, the latter will find themselves worse off in the future, as efforts at curtailing their increased emissions will by then be more costly, esp”
Cropland area embodied in international trade: Contradictory results from different approaches (2014, background): “Globalization and rapidly increasing international trade volumes motivate analysts to complement traditional production-based accounts with consumption-based accounting in order to comprehensively analyze the environmental pressures caused by national consumption (Peters et al., 2012), thereby contr”
INPUT–OUTPUT ANALYSIS: THE NEXT 25 YEARS (2013, methodology): “Wiedmann (2009) and Peters et al. (2012) provided good reviews about MRIO models.”
International trade undermines national emission reduction targets: New evidence from air pollution (2014, background): “While it has been shown that increasing the resolution of embodied CO2 models does not alter the basic results (Davis and Caldeira, 2010; Peters et al., 2012), accurate models with complete country coverage are required for policy applications.”
Wealth Inequality and Carbon Emissions in High-income Countries (2017, background): “However, the biggest contributor to consumption-based emissions is territorial emissions from domestic production that is consumed domestically (Peters, Davis, and Andrew 2012).”