Carbon emissions embedded in China's paper trade: Estimated outcomes of alternative approaches

China is one of the largest exporters of paper products. Along the global value chains (GVCs), specialization and segmentation result in paper products, as well as the intermediate inputs associated with their manufacturing, in one country to be consumed by other countries. This results in the carbon flows embedded in the trade flows and, thus, an ignorance of potential carbon leakage due to production-based carbon emissions accounting. Using the multiregional input-output model and statistics from the World Input-Output Database, we employ a consumer -based accounting method to trace carbon emissions embodied in China's paper trade from 2000 to 2014. It is found that the carbon emissions embodied in China's paper exports were much larger than those of its imports. China's manufacturing and exporting of large amounts of paper products led to high carbon emissions within China. However, substantial carbon leakages can occur to the importing countries of China's paper products if the accounting is done from the production perspective. To reduce paper industry's carbon leakage and participate in GVCs more efficiently, it is also necessary for the country to upgrade the manufacturing tech-nologies and processes.

Automated summary

The study found that China has higher carbon emissions in its paper exports compared to imports, indicating that the country's manufacturing and exporting of paper products lead to high carbon emissions domestically. Furthermore, the potential carbon leakage resulting from production-based carbon emissions accounting is being ignored. To reduce carbon emissions and participate more efficiently in global value chains, China needs to upgrade its manufacturing technologies and processes.