A justice and innovative way ahead of consumption-based emission accounting approach

Carbon emission accounting is an important basis for global climate governance.Based on the consumption-based accounting(CBA)method,the characteristics of carbon flow between national,regional,and product processes could be more clearly reflected.Therefore,CBA is more conducive to clarifying the attribution of responsibilities between producers and consumers,with the principles of fairness and justice.By accounting for carbon emissions in typical countries from 1990 to 2019,we found that the CBA emissions are higher than the production-based accounting(PBA)emissions in major developed countries,while the results are reversed for developing countries.In the past 30 years,the CBA emissions in targeted developed countries generally have shown a downward trend,while in developing countries,they have shown an upward trend.CBA emissions in China have shown a continuous growth trend from 1990 to 2019,but the pace has slowed down significantly over the last decade.Meanwhile,the embodied carbon intensity of China’s exports continues to decline,indicating that China is providing more green and low-carbon products to the world.Taking the PV industry as an example,this study further reveals the contribution of specific product industries to the country’s carbon transfer through product carbon footprint analysis.In order to provide a scientific basis for global mitigation and climate governance,it is urgent to innovate a scientific,practical,and standardized CBA technology system.

Analysis on CO2 Emissions Transferred from Developed Economies to China through Trade

Based on a global input-output model, this paper investigates the CO2 emission transfer between China and developed economies through trade. The results show that approximately 15-23 percent of China＇s production-based emissions during 1995-2009 were induced by the production of goods and services satisfying final demand in developed economies. Decomposition of emission transfers shows that trade of intermediate products played a significant role in emission transfer from developed economies to China. Most developed economies have consumption-based emission responsibilities that are higher than their production-based responsibilities, whereas China＇s consumption-based responsibility is significantly lower than its production-based responsibility. We argue that a fair and efficient carbon accounting approach should take CO 2 emission transfers from developed economies to developing economies into consideration. It is important that China and its developed trade partners cooperate in reducing emission transfers.

Decoupling effect and influencing factors of carbon emissions in China:Based on production,consumption,and income responsibilities

Carbon emissions at the provincial level are mostly calculated based on production responsibility,which ignores the carbon emission accounting perspectives of consumption and income responsibility.However,scientific accounting of carbon emissions from multiple perspectives is crucial to equitably distribute the responsibilities for reducing emissions.This study utilises an input–output model for multi-regional carbon emissions to calculate carbon emissions from production-,consumption-and income-based perspectives for exploring the variability in the responsibilities for reducing emissions at the provincial level.The Tapio decoupling coefficient is used to analyse the relationship between carbon emissions and economic growth in key provinces,and the Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index(LMDI)model is used to determine the factors promoting or inhibiting the decoupling of carbon emissions under different responsibility perspectives.The results show that,firstly,the national carbon emissions illustrate the following trend:production-based emissions>income-based emissions>consumption-based emissions.Secondly,provinces in strong decoupling states are distributed in a northeast–southwest direction.Carbon emissions and decoupling situations differ among varying responsibility perspectives due to interprovincial transfers of carbon emissions.Thus,a compensation mechanism should be established to promote a fair and orderly peaking in each province.Lastly,carbon emission intensity is a factor promoting decoupling in all three perspectives.In the meantime,output scale,economic development and factor input are the major inhibiting factors for the decoupling of production-,consumption-and income-based emissions,respectively.