中国钢铁产品国际贸易流与碳排放跨境转移

控制温室气体排放最终要落实到不同国家、不同行业之间的利益分配和责任分担,尤其是通过国际商品贸易转移的碳排放是在国家间分配排放配额时必须考虑的指标。基于中国钢铁产品国际贸易流的分析表明,中国在国际钢铁产品贸易中处于垂直产业内贸易的低端,中国具有比较优势的钢铁产品多为加工程度低、技术含量低、能源消耗强度大的初级产品。由于我国进出口钢铁产品在附加价值和能源消耗强度方面存在明显的差异,随着中国钢铁产品国际贸易规模的扩大,使大量CO₂排放责任向中国净转移。我国学者应以更加积极的姿态参与到国际谈判、国际规则的制订中,从产品生产者和消费者两个层面合理界定中国在全球温室气体减排中的责任,力争在气候变化国际谈判中确保中国的经济贸易利益。

Carbon dioxide emission embodied in the international trade flows of iron and steel commodities of China: From the perspective of intra-industry trade

Due to the existence of international commodity trade flows and economic activity globalization, responsibility for carbon emission reduction at a national territorial level would easily result in carbon leakage, thus may lead to significant misunderstanding in evaluating reduction performance. Accordingly, trans-boundary displacement of emissions resulted from inter-country flows of goods through international trade should be taken into account in the international negotiation on global climate change. This paper attempts to explore international competitiveness of China's iron and steel industry from intra-industry trade flows and associated energy consumption and CO₂ emission embodied within these trade flows. China is not only the biggest producer and consumer of iron and steel products but also the biggest exporter and importer of iron and steel commodities in the world. From the perspective of intra-industry trade, China's iron and steel industry is at the bottom of the vertical intra-industry trade. In other words, China has a comparative advantage in primary products as low-tech or low value-added and carbon-rich products along the production chain. Such division of China's iron and steel industry in international trade has contributed a lot to the sharp increase of domestic energy consumptions and carbon emissions of China. In 2007, the energy consumption and the corresponding CO₂ emissions embodied in the iron and steel commodities exported from China amounted to 54.3 Mtce and 142 Mtce, respectively, accounting for 11.4% of the total energy consumption and CO₂ emission of iron and steel industry in China. In addition, due to the greater carbon-intensity and relatively less efficient production processes of Chinese iron and steel manufacturing, the bilateral trade between China and trade partners resulted in approximately 119 Mt CO₂ emission leakage to China. The results presented here have a clear implication for CO₂ emission reduction policies. It is suggested that a consumption-based CO₂ emission accounting system which subtracts the emissions embodied in exports form domestic production-based inventories and adds the emissions embodied in imports to the consumer economies would be a fairer method of allocating responsibility for emission.