Research on carbon emissions embodied in China-Russia trade under the background of the Belt and Road

Based on the latest China-Russia input-output data sets over the period from 2007 to 2015, this study quantified the flow of embodied carbon emissions in China-Russia trade using the emission embodied in bilateral trade (EEBT) approach. In addition, the structural decomposition analysis (SDA) was employed to identify the potential driving factors that affect embodied carbon in imports and exports. The results showed as follow. 1) China was a net exporter of carbon emissions in bilateral trade between China and Russia during 2007-2015. Despite that the bilateral trade scale had expanded considerably, the net export volume of CO2 from China to Russia decreased from 13.21 Mt in 2007 to 4.45 Mt in 2015. 2) From the perspective of different sectors, the metal manufacturing and the chemical sectors of China and Russia were the main sources of CO2 emissions. 3) In terms of driving factors, it was found that the carbon emission coefficient was the main reason for contributing to embodied emission reduction. Moreover, the contribution rate of carbon emission coefficient to reduce the carbon emissions in imports reached to 95.26%, as well as 108.22% in exports. The bilateral trade scale was the main driver for the increase in embodied carbon emissions, and the contribution rate to embodied carbon emissions in imports and exports were 14.80% and 65.17%, respectively. 4) This study argued that China and Russia should further optimize the energy structure and improve the energy efficiency and intermediate technology in the future.