A report by the Chinese Academy of Sciences reveals that between 1990 and 2019, consumption-based carbon emissions were generally higher than production-based emissions in major developed countries. The 2024 Research Report on Consumption-based Carbon Emissions highlights that, in 2019, these countries transferred 1.47 billion tons of carbon emissions to other regions through international trade. Conversely, major developing countries absorbed 3.39 billion tons of embodied carbon emissions that same year.
Wei Wei, vice-president of the Shanghai Advanced Research Institute at CAS and a leading researcher on the report emphasized the significant impact of international trade on the carbon emissions of developing countries. Exporting carbon-intensive products to developed nations has fueled economic growth and job creation in these developing countries, but it has also resulted in higher production-based emissions compared to consumption-based ones.
Specifically, China's consumption-based carbon emissions were consistently lower than its production-based emissions from 1990 to 2019. The discrepancy between these two measures widened from 700 million tons in 1990 to 1.8 billion tons in 2019. The report attributes an 83.3 percent reduction in the embodied carbon intensity of China’s export trade to industrial upgrades and technological advancements. This indicates China's growing role in supplying greener, low-carbon products globally.
The research team notes that production-based carbon emission calculations, which are confined to the geographic boundaries of production activities, do not adequately capture the interconnected nature of economic activities. They also overlook the carbon emissions embodied in the international trade of goods and services.
