China's Trade of Agricultural Products Drives Substantial Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Zheng Meng; Jinling Guo; Kejia Yan; Zhuan Yang; Bozi Li; Bo Zhang; Bin Chen

doi:10.3390/ijerph192315774

China's Trade of Agricultural Products Drives Substantial Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Nov 27;19(23):15774. doi: 10.3390/ijerph192315774.

Authors

Zheng Meng¹, Jinling Guo¹, Kejia Yan², Zhuan Yang¹, Bozi Li¹, Bo Zhang², Bin Chen³

Affiliations

¹ School of Management, China University of Mining & Technology (Beijing), Beijing 100083, China.
² School of Management, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China.
³ Fudan Tyndall Center, Department of Environmental Science & Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.

Abstract

China's trade of agricultural products has expanded rapidly over the past two decades, resulting in considerable shifts in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions worldwide. This study aims to explore the evolution of GHG emissions embodied in China's trade of agricultural products from 1995 to 2015. The GHG emissions embodied in China's exports of agricultural products experienced three stages of fluctuation, showing a significant upward trend (1995-2003), a fluctuating trend (2004-2007), and a fall back to the previous level (2008-2015). The embodied GHG emissions in China's imports were witnessed at times of sustained growth, rising from 10.5 Mt CO₂-eq in 1995 to 107.7 Mt CO₂-eq in 2015. The net import of embodied GHG emissions has grown at an average annual rate of 25.1% since 2008. In terms of regional contribution, the distribution of China's trading partners tended to be diversified. The increasing net imports of oil crops to China resulted in a significant GHG emissions shift from China to the US and Brazil. Asian countries contributed to 76.9% of the total GHG emissions embodied in China's agricultural exports. The prominent impacts of China's trade of agricultural products on global GHG emissions provide important implications for climate-related policy choices.

Keywords: China; GHG emissions; agricultural products; international trade; time series.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Asia
Carbon Dioxide / analysis
China
Climate
Greenhouse Gases*

Substances

Greenhouse Gases
Carbon Dioxide

Grants and funding

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant nos. 72088101 and 71774161), and the Major Program of National Philosophy and Social Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 21ZDA086).