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The decoupling between economic growth and energy consumption in China is a major concern for academics and policy-makers owing to China's large economy, tremendous energy consumption, and the fast growth of both, but less to be discussed at the sectoral level. This paper takes advantage of the input-output tables to take an insight into the complete energy consumption of sectors, including both direct and indirect parts in the supply chain, in the Chinese economy during 1995–2015. Combining with Tapio decoupling index and the Log-Mean Divisia Index (LMDI), this study not only evaluates the decoupling status between the complete energy consumption and sectoral economic growth but also reveals factors that cause the changes of decoupling index at the sectoral level. Our results show that China witnessed a common weak decoupling and end up with a strong decoupling for its sectors. The changes in decoupling status mainly occurred during 1996–1998, 2001–2003, and 2011–2013 due to financial crises, international trade growth, and less energy consumption. The production effect is a positive driving factor of the decoupling index, while the energy intensity effect plays a negative role in the decoupling index growth. The energy structure effect is insignificant compared to the production effect and the energy intensity effect. Our results provide some new insights into the decoupling progress between sectoral growth and complete energy consumption where the sectoral differences are emphasized for both theoretical and practical implications. • Decoupling of sectoral complete energy use from economy was studied. • Complete energy use reflects the sectors' pull on energy use in the economy. • Sectors showed desirable changes towards strong decoupling. • Major factors affecting decoupling score were production and energy intensity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Domestic trade flourishes with economic development and the spatial separation of production and consumption. Therefore, the prosperity of trade is accompanied by the transfer of pollution from the demand side to the supply side, which could potentially worsen the environmental quality of the supply side. Despite a large number of studies on the pollution haven hypothesis in international trade, little attention has been paid to testing the hypothesis in domestic trade. Here, combining a multiregional input–output analysis and a gravity model of trade in China, we provide an empirical test to address this problem for the first time. We also assess the factors affecting the SO 2 emissions embodied in trade, including population, economic development, coal consumption, distance, and environmental regulations. We found that domestic trade contributed approximate one third of the total SO 2 emissions in China, and interprovincial transfers of SO 2 embodied in trade were significantly determined by the population, economic development, coal consumption of the trade pairs, as well as their distance. SO 2 emission mitigation policies, such as emission reduction target and sulfur dioxide control zone, has a more significant influence on the direct transfer of SO 2 emission via direct bilateral trade, while their effects were largely offset by indirect trade (through third–party transfers). Our results do not support the pollution haven hypothesis existed in domestic trade in China during 2007–2012. Our paper sets an example and provides a reference for the domestic pollution transfer problem from an econometric perspective. Further attempts on testing pollution haven hypothesis in consideration of various pollutants are still needed to arrive at a robust conclusion. Graphical abstract Unlabelled Image Highlights • MRIO model was combined with gravity model to study the domestic SO 2 flows. • SO 2 pollution haven effect of domestic trade in China was tested and not found. • Policy effects were weakened by indirect SO 2 transfer embodied in trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Dirty industries tend to relocate to regions with looser environmental regulations, thus turning those regions into pollution havens. Numerous studies have tested the pollution haven effect of inter-country industrial relocation. However, little attention has been paid to the effect that is hidden in domestic industry relocation. Considering that domestic investment is about 10-fold that of foreign investment, it is vital to examine this issue to ensure the achievability of China's international pledge of mitigating carbon emissions. This research integrated multiregional input-output analysis and a center of gravity model to visualize the dislocation between carbon emissions, value added, and outputs at a sectoral level from 2007 to 2012 in China. Carbon emissions were also decomposed to three segments of final demand. We also investigated the movement of the center of gravity of these segments, and their dislocation with the outputs. Our analysis found that more carbon emissions had relocated from east to west with domestic industry relocation, yet the opposite was found for value added. Specifically, carbon intensive sectors showed clear tendencies of shifting west. Capital formation was the major cause of the pollution haven effects for the economy as a whole. Thus, our results suggest that pollution haven effects exist in the relocation processes of most sectors. In turn, our findings support the idea that mitigation policies should differ by region and by industry. Our recommendations include a negative list for regions in the west, a mitigation policy for industries with high pollution, and differentiated supply chain management for final demands. Graphical abstract Image Highlights • MRIO and center of gravity are used to visualize the pollution haven effect. • Center of gravity is decomposed by final demand categories. • Most industries moving to the north and the west have pollution haven effect. • Capital formation is the major cause of pollution haven effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy use is often accompanied with air emissions including SO x , NO x , CO 2 , etc. It is essential to consider both the energy and environmental performance of various sectors to ensure better policymaking. This study considered air pollution by calculating energy-environmental efficiency (EEE) at the sectoral level. A few studies have previously applied the slack-based measure (SBM) model to multi-sector EEE assessments. Despite the advantages of SBM model, potential improvements have rarely been proposed. Therefore, a super-efficiency SBM model with undesirable outputs (S-U-SBM) was used to evaluate the EEE of 31 sectors in China. The policy implications of improving EEE, in microcosmic (potential improvement) and macroscopic (influencing factors) terms, were considered. The results indicated that for all sectors there was an overall trend of increasing EEE from 1995 to 2009, except for Rent and Other Business Activities, and Health and Social Work. The average annual potential for energy-saving and emission-reducing measures in all sectors was 1.396 × 10 17 J and 7.0780 × 10 7 tons, respectively. Chemicals and Chemical Materials had the highest potential to save energy and reduce emissions. A panel regression indicated that the relationship between EEE and gross output was U-shaped for all industry, but had an inverted-U shape for heavy industry. Sectoral size, technology, and the proportion of energy demand satisfied by coal significantly influenced EEE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study developed a framework for combining multi-regional input-output analysis and network indicators to assess the interregional CO 2 flows in China. The interregional CO 2 flows of eight regions were calculated and visualized based on a multiregional input-output (MRIO) model for China. The focus of the research was intermediate use. The results of the network indicators showed that refined petroleum, coke, nuclear fuel and chemical products (07), and basic metals and fabricated metal sectors (09) played key roles in the complex networks. and these sectors in most regions controlled a large share of CO 2 transfer by functioning as key hubs and authorities. They along with commerce, transport, storage, and post (16) acted as agents that brokered the CO 2 flows within and between regions. The roles of some other industrial sectors were also identified, e.g., construction (15) functioned as the largest authority. The results demonstrated the importance and effectiveness of network indicators for identifying the characteristics of CO 2 emissions embedded in the domestic supply chain, and provided new information relevant to policy implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The collapse of the plastic waste trade (PWT) amplifies the threats of mismanaged plastic waste to the ecological system and human health, posing a risk as well as an opportunity to the global circular economy. Although trade barriers in the PWT continue to impact waste management systems, there are few analyses that propose global mitigation strategies in response to trade fluctuations. Here, we show that most countries have been overloaded with plastic waste compared to their ordinary capacity since China's import ban in 2017. We apply a cascading failure model to quantify the collapse process worldwide and find that 183 countries become overloaded as this collapse cascades, with nearly 6% of countries experiencing over 1.5 times their ordinary load. However, this overload could be greatly alleviated if leading countries were to sharply increase their capacity to treat plastic waste based on scenario analysis. Although waste exporters should take more responsibility and scenario analysis results show that top exporters could effectively mitigate global plastic waste levels by increasing their treatment capacity, cooperation between key exporters, importers, and intermediators has the best mitigation effects. Our analysis suggests that key countries should as soon as possible take responsibility for and cooperate in mitigating potential plastic waste pollution related to trade fluctuations. • Many countries show plastic waste overloading due to China's import ban. • Structural change of plastic waste trade could lead cascading failure worldwide. • Overload situation will be greatly alleviated, if leading countries work for it. • The cooperation strategy has the best mitigation effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]