Shared responsibility of carbon emission for international trade based on carbon emission embodied between developing and developed countries

Traditional Production-Based Accounting (PBA) principle does not consider the embodied carbon emissions in export and import trade. A multiregional input–output (MRIO) model is constructed to estimate the embodied carbon dioxide emissions of 41 countries and regions worldwide, based on the PBA and shared responsibility approach in this paper. The results indicate that the embodied carbon emissions in 2018 in China’s export trade were 1326 million tons higher than that of import trade. China, India, and the USA have a different carbon coefficient in the 35 sectors, but electricity, gas, and water supply sectors are the largest coefficient for them. A reduction in carbon emission coefficient would contribute to a decrease in imports and exports. Through the empirical analysis of the embodied carbon emissions in China’s import and export trade, it can be seen that China is a major producer of carbon emissions, not a consumer country, and has taken more carbon emissions responsibility for the world. The developed countries should take more shared carbon emission responsibility than the PBA. And it is more reasonable and impartial to assign developed and developing countries carbon emissions responsibility in the light of the shared responsibility method.