No abstract

In this research, U.S. manufacturing activities' life cycle-based carbon and energy footprint impacts have been quantified, taking international trade linkages with the rest of the world into account. The U.S economy has been integrated into a multi-region input-output (MRIO) life cycle assessment framework where total of 40 major economies, including the USA, China, Russia, and others, plus the rest of the world (ROW) were modelled to assess global energy and carbon footprint impacts. Each country's economy is assumed to compromise 35 major industries based on the WIOD database classification. A total of 1435 (41 × 35 = 1435) industries has therefore been taken to represent the global structure of the world economy. The novelty of the approach is that the MRIO model has been developed in a stochastic fashion, plus global trade-linked uncertainties have also been taken into consideration. Top carbon emitting and energy consumer industries and countries have been analysed using data analytics and statistical modelling methods. The results show that the USA is the largest contributor to the total carbon footprint (CFP) and the total energy footprint (EFP) with 81.73% and 84%, respectively. Moreover, the agriculture/hunting forestry/fishing sector and the electricity/gas/water supply sectors dominate the overall U.S. carbon footprint, contributing 22% and 21.28%, respectively. The coke/refined petroleum/nuclear fuel sector has the largest share of the total energy footprint, with 47.9% of the total impacts.

Freight transportation performs a critical role in the supply networks of the global economy and is heavily influenced by the activities of the industrial and manufacturing sectors, contributing significantly to their global carbon footprint (CFP). This research evaluates the lifecycle-based CFP emissions of freight transport activities in seven selected countries (China, Japan, the United States, Canada, Brazil, Great Britain, and Germany) over fifteen years, considering international trade linkages with the rest of the world. In the literature, most researchers have investigated the CFP of the transportation sector in general or analyzed the CFP of two or three countries, such as the USA and China. However, this research is novel in that it examines the CFP of the freight transport sectors of the seven biggest industrial countries. In addition, a positive relationship was found between the CFP and the gross domestic product (GDP), population, level of urbanization, and area of these countries. Therefore, this study investigates the relationship between global CFP, GDP, population, level of urbanization, and country area. A total of 15 stochastic model-based multi-regional input–output lifecycle assessments were built for each country, comprising 35 key industries. Statistical modeling tools were used to assess carbon emissions. The results show that China is the largest contributor to the freight-related CFP, while the U.S. is the second largest. The manufacture of coke and refined petroleum products represents the dominant sector. In contrast, warehousing and support activities have the most significant contributions in Germany and Great Britain. Land transport and transport via pipelines contribute the most to Canada’s CFP. The results of the regression analysis show that there is a positive relationship between the investigated variables.