中国铜产品环境足迹评价和供应风险综合评估

Copper products environmental footprint assessment and comprehensive supply risk evaluation for China

在中国经济高速发展和清洁能源技术逐渐兴起的背景下,铜作为战略金属在基础设施建设和低碳技术领域需求巨大。本研究借助物质流分析方法进行数据收集,评价铜材生产环境足迹,并从环境足迹、地缘供应风险和供应限制脆弱性三个维度对中国铜产品进行供应风险综合评估。结果显示:2021年中国的铜进口物质量达1631万t,位居世界第一,主要进口铜精矿和精炼铜,出口铜制品。相比其他地区,中国生产铜材的环境足迹处于较低水平,主要由能耗较大的采矿阶段和冶炼阶段产生;而能源消耗电力化和电力清洁化可以成为铜生产行业碳减排的重要手段。中国铜产品供应风险增加主要是耗竭时间、全球治理指数和经济重要性三个指标风险增加所导致。综合指标显示,环境足迹下降也无法消除地缘供应风险和供应限制脆弱性的上升,从而导致供应风险的上升。因此,提高铜产品可替代率和回收率,以及增强供应国间合作将成为降低供应风险的有效举措。

In the context of China's rapid economic development and the rise of clean energy technologies,copper is in great demand as a strategic metal in infrastructure construction and low-carbon technologies.With the help of material flow analysis method for data collection,this study assessed the environmental footprint of copper production,and evaluated the copper products supply risk for China in three dimensions:environmental footprint,geo-supply risk and vulnerability to supply restriction.The results show that China's imports of copper mass reach 16.31 million tons in 2021,ranking the first in the world.It mainly imports copper concentrates and refined copper and exports copper products.Compared with other regions,the environmental footprint of copper alloys production in China is at a lower level,which is mainly generated by the energy-intensive mining and smelting stages.The electrification of energy consumption and the cleaning of electricity can be important means of carbon emission reduction in the copper production industry.The increase of copper products supply risk in China is mainly caused by the increased risk of three indicators:depletion time,worldwide governance index and economic importance.The comprehensive indicator suggests that even the decreasing environmental footprint does not eliminate the overall increase in risk due to rising geo-supply risk and vulnerability to supply constraints.Therefore,improving copper products substitutability and recovery rate and enhancing cooperation among supplying countries will be effective initiatives to reduce supply risk.