Search

• CH 4 emissions in global supply chains during 2000–2012 were tracked. • Consumption-based CH 4 emissions of China/the EU showed an obvious increase/decrease trend in 2000–2012. • Growing amounts of CH 4 emissions were displaced globally via international trade. • The results support supply-chain-wised policy formulation to mitigate CH 4 emissions. Reduction of methane emissions (CH 4) plays an important role in addressing global climate change. Most previous studies have focused on the direct CH 4 emissions of economies, but overlooked the upstream CH 4 emissions along global supply chains induced by the final consumption of economies. Using a global multi-regional input-output analysis, this study aims to explore the evolution of CH 4 emissions embodied in international trade and final consumption in major economies during 2000–2012. The results show that China, the EU, USA, India and Brazil were the top five economies with high volumes of consumption-based CH 4 emissions from 2000 to 2012. In particular, China's consumption-based CH 4 emissions showed an observable growth trend, while the EU, the USA and Japan showed a downward trend. It's estimated that growing amounts of CH 4 emissions (i.e., the volume increase from 77.1 Mt in 2000 to 95.9 Mt in 2012) were transferred globally via international trade, primarily as exports from China, Russia and other large developing economies to consumers in major developed economies. Russia–EU, China–USA and China–EU formed the main bilateral trading pairs of embodied emission flows. Further analysis found that per capita consumption-based CH 4 emissions was closely related to their per capita GDP. Quantifying the CH 4 emissions embodied in trade and final demand of major economies can provide important basis for understanding economy-wide emission drivers to design global and regional CH 4 reduction scheme from a consumer perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globalization drives anthropogenic methane (CH 4) emissions from upstream to downstream agents through global supply chains. However, previous studies have overlooked the indirect CH 4 emissions enabled by primary suppliers. In this study, we use the Ghosh Multi-Regional Input-Output (MRIO) model and Structural Decomposition Analysis (SDA) to explore the temporal changes in global income-based CH 4 emissions and decompose the socioeconomic drivers. Our results show that global income-based CH 4 emissions increased by 17.21% from 2001 to 2014, with per capita primary inputs and technology being the two key drivers. Specifically, in China and India, income-based CH 4 emissions were mainly from agriculture, and input structure was responsible for restraining the growth in CH 4 emissions from their agricultural activities. On the other hand, service activities dominated the United States and the European Union, and production output structure was accountable for their emission growth related to service activities. To achieve global CH 4 emission mitigation, key sectors of major economies with high income-based CH 4 emissions should optimize their primary input structures, production output structure, and production technologies from the supply-side. It is crucial to reduce enabled CH 4 emissions in emerging economies, particularly in Asia, through the adjustment of primary input activities. [Display omitted] • Per capita primary inputs and technology dominated global CH 4 emission changes. • Income-based emissions decreased in West & Central Europe and the United States. • Agriculture and mining contributed to the high emissions in most emerging economies. • Production output structure accounted for the growth in service-enabled emissions. • Spatial heterogeneity of drivers of income-based CH 4 emissions was discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the expansion of economic globalization and the growth of international trade, the pulling effect of household consumption to global anthropogenic CH 4 emissions related to production activities is becoming increasingly evident. This paper adopts a new perspective from the household-consumption side to investigate the CH 4 emissions of major economies in 2014 and compares it with the scenario under the final-demand-based perspective by combing the world input-output database and the latest emission data from the UNFCCC and EDGAR v5.0 database. Budgets of CH 4 emissions for 43 economies are established and trade connections & balances among major economies are explored. Results show that consumption-driven economies are allocated more CH 4 emissions in the household-consumption-based accounting (HCBA) framework compared to the final-demand-based accounting (FDBA) framework. The total trade-related transfer of CH 4 emissions is shown to sum up to 19% and 27% of the global total under the HCBA and FDBA frameworks, respectively. The household-consumption-based CH 4 emissions of China, India, Indonesia and Mexico are much lower than their final-demand-based CH 4 emissions, while the converse is true for the United States, Russia, Japan, the United Kingdom and Germany. The new accounting framework provides a new view to understand trade-related CH 4 emissions of major economies and to identify the role of household consumption in global supply chains, offering important implications for greenhouse gas emission mitigation. Unlabelled Image • Latest CH 4 emission inventories for major economies in 2014 are provided. • Household-consumption-based accounting of CH 4 emissions is firstly conducted. • The findings are compared with those under the final-demand-based accounting. • Consumption-oriented economies should take more responsibility for CH 4 reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Agriculture is one of the most important sectors for global anthropogenic methane (CH 4) and nitrous oxide (N 2 O) emissions. While much attention has been paid to production-side agricultural non-CO 2 greenhouse gas (ANGHG) emissions, less is known about the emissions from the consumption-based perspective. This paper aims to explore the characteristics of agricultural CH 4 and N 2 O emissions of global major economies by using the latest emission data from the Food and Agriculture Organization Corporate Statistical Database (FAOSTAT) and the recently available global multi-regional input-output model from the World Input-Output Database (WIOD). The results show that in 2014, the 42 major economies together accounted for 60.7% and 65.0% of global total direct and embodied ANGHG emissions, respectively. The consumption-based ANGHG emissions in the US, Japan, and the EU were much higher than their production-based emissions, while the converse was true for Brazil, Australia, and India. The global-average embodied ANGHG emissions per capita was 0.7 t CO 2 -eq, but major developing countries such as China, India, Indonesia and Mexico were all below this average value. We find that the total transfer of embodied ANGHG emissions via international trade was 622.4 Mt CO 2 -eq, 11.9% of the global total. China was the largest exporter of embodied ANGHG emissions, while the US was the largest importer. Most developed economies were net importers of embodied emissions. Mexico-US, China-US, China-EU, China-Japan, China-Russia, Brazil-EU, India-EU and India-US formed the main bilateral trading pairs of embodied emission flows. Examining consumption-based inventories can be useful for understanding the impacts of final demand and international trade on agricultural GHG emissions and identifying appropriate mitigation potentials along global supply chains. Highlights • We explore agricultural CH 4 and N 2 O emission characteristics of 42 major economies. • Impacts of final demand and international trade on ANGHG emissions are evaluated. • 622.4 Mt CO 2 eq CH 4 and N 2 O emissions in 2014 were embodied in international trade. • Developed economies as net importers had high per capita emission requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]