(Yicai) May 30 -- Carbon emissions due to consumption in developed countries have been higher than those produced by their industrial sectors over the past 30 years, as international trade has shifted emissions to developing countries, according to a new research report.

Consumption-related carbon emissions in major developed countries were 1.1 to 2 times higher than from their production activities between 1990 and 2019, the report published yesterday by the Chinese Academy of Sciences said.

In 2019, major economies transferred about 1.48 billion tons of carbon emissions to other countries and regions through international trade, the report said, the same year that they also accounted for about 3.39 billion tons embedded in international trade.

The gap between the production- and consumer-linked carbon footprints in developing nations widened to 4.17 billion tons in 2019 from 1.47 billion tons in 1990, the report said.

The report’s findings are the result of an analysis of the evolutionary characteristics of consumption-side carbon emissions in major developed and developing countries over the period, and assessed the carbon transfer effects of trade in typical products.

“By exporting products to developed countries, which can cause carbon emissions, developing countries have spurred their economic growth and employment, but that also leads to their carbon emissions on the producer side to be higher than those on the consumer side,” said Wei Wei, vice president of the CAS’ Shanghai Advanced Research Institute.

“The accounting methodology targeting the producer side, which is now widely applied, does not consider carbon emission shifts caused by trade,”  Wei noted. “Consumption-side carbon accounting is more conducive to clarifying the responsibilities of producers and consumers for carbon emissions.”

The gap between emissions on the producer and consumer sides in China, one of the world's major exporters, grew to 1.8 billion tons from 700 million tons. China has been striving to reduce emissions from the production process through technology upgrades, cutting the carbon intensity of its export trade by 83 percent.

Some experts, including Wei, have called for consumption-linked emissions to be included in the global carbon accounting system to divide global carbon-reduction responsibilities more scientifically. 

They advocate for further enhancing methodologies and data quality, along with deepening relevant scientific research and international collaborations, to provide better scientific evidence for cutting global emissions and climate change governance.

Editor: Martin Kadiev