IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-02572459.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

On Sharing Responsibilities for Pollution Embodied in Trade

Author

Listed:
  • Philippe Bontems

    (TSE-R - Toulouse School of Economics - UT Capitole - Université Toulouse Capitole - UT - Université de Toulouse - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement)

  • Marie-Françoise Calmette

    (TSE-R - Toulouse School of Economics - UT Capitole - Université Toulouse Capitole - UT - Université de Toulouse - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement)

Abstract

In this article, we propose a new way of assessing environmental responsibility at the country level, taking into account their trade balance in terms of carbon. Starting from the fact that the approach based on the respective responsibilities of the producer and the consumer, which are widely promoted and used in the literature, each have their own limitations, we introduce a modified formula for the net trade balance of carbon at the country level. To do this, we examine the extent to which trade flows for a given country increase or decrease global emissions relative to the virtual situation where imports would have been produced in the consumer country. We argue that it would be fair for countries to retain responsibility for the additional emissions they create when trading. We then discuss the incentives provided by the modified liability rule to reduce emission intensity and extend our formula to include trade in intermediate goods. Finally, we illustrate our concept using World Bank and OECD data on trade flows and emission intensity ratios. We characterize six groups of countries according to the respective order of their producer, consumer and our new liability rule.

Suggested Citation

  • Philippe Bontems & Marie-Françoise Calmette, 2019. "On Sharing Responsibilities for Pollution Embodied in Trade," Post-Print hal-02572459, HAL.
  • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02572459
    DOI: 10.3917/redp.296.0967
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-02572459
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hal.science/hal-02572459/document
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.3917/redp.296.0967?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dominique Bureau & Lionel Fontagné & Katheline Schubert, 2017. "Commerce et climat : pour une réconciliation," Post-Print hal-01459600, HAL.
    2. Arce, Guadalupe & López, Luis Antonio & Guan, Dabo, 2016. "Carbon emissions embodied in international trade: The post-China era," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 184(C), pages 1063-1072.
    3. Arto, Iñaki & Roca, Jordi & Serrano, Mònica, 2014. "Measuring emissions avoided by international trade: Accounting for price differences," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 93-100.
    4. Bastianoni, Simone & Pulselli, Federico Maria & Tiezzi, Enzo, 2004. "The problem of assigning responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 253-257, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Philippe Bontems & Marie-Françoise Calmette, 2019. "On Sharing Responsibilities for Pollution Embodied in Trade," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 129(6), pages 967-992.
    2. Lin, Zekun & Meng, Fanxin & Wang, Dongfang & Liao, Danqi & Sun, Yutong & Hou, Jiaqi & Liu, Gengyuan & Giannetti, Biagio Fernando & Agostinho, Feni & Almeida, Cecília M.V.B., 2023. "Unfolding carbon inequality across Belt and Road Initiative countries and regions under a global trade network," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 482(C).
    3. Pu, Zhengning & Fu, Jiasha & Zhang, Chi & Shao, Jun, 2018. "Structure decomposition analysis of embodied carbon from transition economies," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 1-12.
    4. Fan, Xiaojia & Wu, Sanmang & Li, Shantong, 2019. "Spatial-temporal analysis of carbon emissions embodied in interprovincial trade and optimization strategies: A case study of Hebei, China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 1235-1249.
    5. Tian Luan, 2024. "A Review of Corporate Social Responsibility Decoupling and Its Impact: Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(10), pages 1-17, May.
    6. Pottier, Antonin & Combet, Emmanuel & Cayla, Jean-Michel & de Lauretis, Simona & Nadaud, Franck, 2021. "Who emits CO2 ? Landscape of ecological inequalities in France from a critical perspective," FEEM Working Papers 311053, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    7. Mi, Zhifu & Zhang, Yunkun & Guan, Dabo & Shan, Yuli & Liu, Zhu & Cong, Ronggang & Yuan, Xiao-Chen & Wei, Yi-Ming, 2016. "Consumption-based emission accounting for Chinese cities," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 184(C), pages 1073-1081.
    8. Rui Xie & Chao Gao & Guomei Zhao & Yu Liu & Shengcheng Xu, 2017. "Empirical Study of China’s Provincial Carbon Responsibility Sharing: Provincial Value Chain Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-16, April.
    9. Li, Jia Shuo & Zhou, H.W. & Meng, Jing & Yang, Q. & Chen, B. & Zhang, Y.Y., 2018. "Carbon emissions and their drivers for a typical urban economy from multiple perspectives: A case analysis for Beijing city," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 226(C), pages 1076-1086.
    10. Saah, David & Patterson, Trista & Buchholz, Thomas & Ganz, David & Albert, David & Rush, Keith, 2014. "Modeling economic and carbon consequences of a shift to wood-based energy in a rural ‘cluster’; a network analysis in southeast Alaska," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 287-298.
    11. Zhong, Zhangqi & Jiang, Lei & Zhou, Peng, 2018. "Transnational transfer of carbon emissions embodied in trade: Characteristics and determinants from a spatial perspective," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 858-875.
    12. Kverndokk, Snorre & Rose, Adam, 2008. "Equity and Justice in Global Warming Policy," International Review of Environmental and Resource Economics, now publishers, vol. 2(2), pages 135-176, October.
    13. Wiedmann, Thomas, 2009. "A first empirical comparison of energy Footprints embodied in trade -- MRIO versus PLUM," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(7), pages 1975-1990, May.
    14. Rutger Hoekstra & Marco Janssen, 2006. "Environmental responsibility and policy in a two-country dynamic input-output model," Economic Systems Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(1), pages 61-84.
    15. Zhou, P. & Wang, M., 2016. "Carbon dioxide emissions allocation: A review," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 47-59.
    16. Walsh, Conor & O'Regan, Bernadette & Moles, Richard, 2009. "Incorporating methane into ecological footprint analysis: A case study of Ireland," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(7), pages 1952-1962, May.
    17. Mingming Zhu & Jigan Wang & Jie Zhang & Zhencheng Xing, 2022. "Urban Low-Carbon Consumption Performance Assessment: A Case Study of Yangtze River Delta Cities, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(16), pages 1-14, August.
    18. Zhang, Zengkai & Zhang, ZhongXiang & Zhu, Kunfu, 2020. "Allocating carbon responsibility: The role of spatial production fragmentation," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    19. Rahel Aichele, 2013. "Trade, Climate Policy and Carbon Leakage - Theory and Empirical Evidence," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 49.
    20. Francesco Ciardiello & Andrea Genovese & Andrew Simpson, 2020. "A unified cooperative model for environmental costs in supply chains: the Shapley value for the linear case," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 290(1), pages 421-437, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02572459. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.