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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Mar. Sci.
Sec. Marine Affairs and Policy
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fmars.2024.1429841

Assessment of export-embodied CO 2 emissions from China's ocean industries: Implications for formulating sustainable ocean policies

Provisionally accepted
Li Zheng Li Zheng 1,2zengkai zhang zengkai zhang 3*ye yao ye yao 1,4*Xiaofeng Duan Xiaofeng Duan 2*Mingxin Li Mingxin Li 2*Zhao Zeng Zhao Zeng 1,4*Huibin Du Huibin Du 1,4
  • 1 College of Management and Economics, Tianjin University, Nankai, Tianjin, China
  • 2 National Marine Data and Information Service, China Oceanic Information Network, Tianjin, China
  • 3 College of the Environment and Ecology, Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian Province, China
  • 4 Other, Tianjin, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The ocean industries are characterized by being export-driven. The exports of ocean industries (hereafter termed ocean exports) caused environmental pollution with amounts of CO2 emissions and thereby affected climate change. There is a need, therefore, for accurate assessments of CO2 emissions embodied in ocean exports-which can help policymakers adopt targeted emission-reduction measures to formulate sustainable ocean policies. However, few studies of ocean-industry emissions considered impacts in sectoral and trade pattern heterogeneity, especially from export perspective. To fill this gap, we measured and evaluated the export-embodied CO2 emissions from China's ocean industries, based on our newly developed high-resolution and comparable time-series environmentally extended input-output database, called EE-DPN-OEIOT. The results showed that China's ocean exports generated 94.3 Mt of embodied CO2 emissions in 2017, with nearly 40% originating from processing ocean exports. Regarding the evolution from 2007 to 2017, the total export-embodied CO2 emissions from ocean industries decreased by 7.3%, while the embodied CO2 emissions in processing ocean exports increased by 50.1%. From 2007 to 2017, the decrease in carbon emission intensity was the major driving factor of the downturn in export-embodied CO2 emissions across the total ocean economy and for seven ocean subsectors (60%), while the export-scale effect primarily drove the increases in CO2 emissions. Moreover, there were disparities in the driving factors behind changes in embodied CO2 emissions between processing and non-processing ocean exports. Based on our findings, we proposed three recommendations from a trade perspective to facilitate low-carbon sustainable transition of China's ocean economy, thus better fulfilling Sustainable Development Goal 14.

    Keywords: Ocean industry, export-embodied CO2 emissions, processing exports, Environmentally extended input-output, Driving factor, sustainable ocean policies

    Received: 08 May 2024; Accepted: 16 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Zheng, zhang, yao, Duan, Li, Zeng and Du. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    zengkai zhang, College of the Environment and Ecology, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361102, Fujian Province, China
    ye yao, College of Management and Economics, Tianjin University, Nankai, 300072, Tianjin, China
    Xiaofeng Duan, National Marine Data and Information Service, China Oceanic Information Network, Tianjin, China
    Mingxin Li, National Marine Data and Information Service, China Oceanic Information Network, Tianjin, China
    Zhao Zeng, College of Management and Economics, Tianjin University, Nankai, 300072, Tianjin, China

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