Embodied carbon transfers and employment-economic spillover effects in China’s inter-provincial trade

Abstract

Understanding the embodied carbon transfer in inter-provincial trade and its employment-economic spillover effects is of crucial value in achieving carbon equity management. Surprisingly, few studies have focused on the intrinsic relationship between embodied carbon, embodied GDP, and embodied employment in iinter-provincial trade and its equity implications. Based on the 2012 and 2017 multi-regional input-output tables, our study of inter-provincial trade in 30 Chinese provinces shows that: 1) net outflows of embodied carbon were concentrated in the Beijing-Tianjin region and the eastern and southern coastal regions, while net inflows were in the central and northwestern regions; 2) embodied carbon, GDP, and employment were characterized by nearby transfer, complementary energy economy, and asymmetric transfers in and out; and 3) western provinces, which relied heavily on traditional energy and heavy chemical industries, gained a competitive disadvantage implying by the internal relationship between net transfers of embodied carbon, GDP, and employment. To mitigate the inequity of inter-provincial carbon trade, top-down climate goals must be aligned with bottom-up socio-economic incentives to achieve balanced regional development and improved public welfare.