Materials embodied in international trade – Global material extraction and consumption between 1995 and 2005

Brückner, Martin; Giljum, Stefan; Lutz, Christian; Wiebe, Kirsten S.

doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2012.03.011

Cited by 239 publications

(135 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…These physical flows are in the form of reduced carbon that will later be oxidised, consumed as food, or otherwise utilised. Several studies have modelled the trade of carbon present in harvested wood products, crops, and food with applications for regional carbon budgets Ciais et al, 2008), and more generally for biomass (Haberl et al, 2007;Krausmann et al, 2008;Erb et al, 2009;Kastner et al, 2011a, b) and fossil fuel (Bringezu et al, 2004;Davis et al, 2011;Bruckner et al, 2012) flows between regions. In addition to carbonbudget and land-use studies, physical carbon flows are also important for emission inventories that include biomass carbon (Cowie et al, 2006).…”

Section: G P Peters Et Al: a Synthesis Of Carbon In International mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For instance, these studies often focus on "apparent consumption" which generally considers direct trade flows without processing Erb et al, 2009), or only a limited level of processing (Kastner et al, 2011b). There have been several studies on fossil fuel trade using apparent consumption (Bringezu et al, 2004;Dittrich and Bringezu, 2010;Steinberger et al, 2010), while and Bruckner et al (2012) use more detailed models with processing. Davis et al (2011) report the only study to consider fossil fuel extraction and trade in terms of carbon content, and consider the processing of primary energy into secondary energy.…”

Section: G P Peters Et Al: a Synthesis Of Carbon In International mentioning

confidence: 99%

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A synthesis of carbon in international trade

2012

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Abstract. In a globalised world, the transfer of carbon between regions, either physically or embodied in production, represents a substantial fraction of global carbon emissions. The resulting emission transfers are important for balancing regional carbon budgets and for understanding the drivers of emissions. In this paper we synthesise current understanding in two parts: (1) CO 2 emissions embodied in goods and services that are produced in one country but consumed in others, and (2) carbon physically present in fossil fuels, petroleum-derived products, harvested wood products, crops, and livestock products. We describe the key differences between studies and provide a consistent set of estimates using the same definitions, modelling framework, and consistent data. We find the largest trade flows of carbon in international trade in 2004 were fossil fuels (2673 MtC, 37 % of global emissions), CO 2 embodied in traded goods and services (1661 MtC, 22 % of global emissions), crops (522 MtC, 31 % of total harvested crop carbon), petroleum-based products (183 MtC, 50 % of their total production), harvested wood products (149 MtC, 40 % of total roundwood extraction), and livestock products (28 MtC, 22 % of total livestock carbon). We find that for embodied CO 2 emissions, estimates from independent studies are robust, and that differences between individual studies are not a reflection of the uncertainty in consumption-based estimates, but rather these differences result from the use of different production-based emissions input data and different definitions for allocating emissions to international trade. After adjusting for these issues, results across independent studies converge to give less uncertainty than previously assumed. For physical carbon flows there are relatively few studies to be synthesised, but differences between existing studies are due to the method of allocating to international trade, with some studies using "apparent consumption" as opposed to "final consumption". While results across studies are sufficiently robust to be used in further applications, more research is needed to understand differences and to harmonise definitions for particular applications.

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Section: G P Peters Et Al: a Synthesis Of Carbon In International mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: G P Peters Et Al: a Synthesis Of Carbon In International mentioning

confidence: 99%

A synthesis of carbon in international trade

2012

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“…Designing the corresponding policies necessitates data on the amount of biomass, minerals, and fossil fuels used to produce commodities for final consumption and hinges on evidence on how households' material footprints react to incentives, in particular prices. While existing literature provides estimates for countries' material footprints (Muñoz et al, 2009;Schoer et al, 2012;Arto et al, 2012;Bruckner et al, 2012;Wiebe et al, 2012;Kovanda and Weinzettel, 2013;Schaffartzik et al, 2014;Wiedmann et al, 2014;Giljum et al, 2015;Wiedmann et al, 2015;Ivanova et al, 2015;Wenzlik et al, 2015;Giljum et al, 2016) 2 , evidence on the heterogeneity of households' MF within a country is scarce and, furthermore, either focused on exotic materials such as neodymium (Shigetomi et al, 2015(Shigetomi et al, , 2016 or based on very small samples (Kotakorpi et al, 2008;Lettenmeier et al, 2012). 3 This study makes two contributions to a better understanding of households' material footprints.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

The Distribution of Material Footprints in Germany

Pothen

Reaños

2018

SSRN Journal

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Die Dis cus si on Pape rs die nen einer mög lichst schnel len Ver brei tung von neue ren For schungs arbei ten des ZEW. Die Bei trä ge lie gen in allei ni ger Ver ant wor tung der Auto ren und stel len nicht not wen di ger wei se die Mei nung des ZEW dar.Dis cus si on Papers are inten ded to make results of ZEW research prompt ly avai la ble to other eco no mists in order to encou ra ge dis cus si on and sug gesti ons for revi si ons. The aut hors are sole ly respon si ble for the con tents which do not neces sa ri ly repre sent the opi ni on of the ZEW. The Distribution of Material Footprints in Germany

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“…Tukker et al (2013) and Wiedmann et al (2015) fortunately deliver quite homogeneous results. This does not hold, however for the US, for which results in terms of RMC figures vary by more than 40% between Bruckner et al (2012) and Wiedmann et al (2015).…”

Section: The Global Contextmentioning

confidence: 86%

“…Similarly, studies employing multiregional input-output (MRIO) matrices should be generally preferred to those based on single-region input-output (SRIO) matrices. In our knowledge, studies of the first type are Bruckner et al (2012), Wiebe et al (2012), Tukker et al (2013) and Wiedmann et al (2015). In this section, we rely on this last computation as in our knowledge it is the one with the highest country-coverage.…”

Section: The Global Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Policies for a More Dematerialized EU Economy: Theoretical Underpinnings, Political Context and Expected Feasibility

2016

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Economic activities affect the environment through a multiplicity of channels. Besides generating GHG emissions that induce climatic changes, every modern economy is connected to the environment throughout a continuous flow of materials. To generate economic wealth, a modern economy demands natural resources, and produces a continuous flow of waste. The scarcity of natural resources and the negative externalities arising along the life cycle of the resources from the extraction of the resources to their transformation, the use of the final products and eventually the final disposal of the latter seem natural motivations for the current policy push towards a more dematerialized and a more circular economy. The EU in particular appears to be approaching a new frontier of the environmental policy. The main contribution of this paper is a qualitative assessment of this strategy. To this aim, we first investigate the theoretical and political rationale for the EU to foster dematerialization, and on this basis, we provide an economic assessment of the effective feasibility of the initiative. From a theoretical economics point of view, the paper provides an overview of the main externalities arising from materials' extraction, use and disposal. In a policy perspective, the paper reviews the state of affairs of the major world countries (USA, Japan and China in particular) on this issue, and contextualizes the EU action in a global perspective. This paper investigates whether in this policy field the EU can globally play a decisive role by itself or its role may be limited to providing a good example for other countries to follow, as in the case of the reduction of GHG emissions. In the second part of the paper we discuss some of the most promising policies put forward by the DYNAMIX project. On the basis of the qualitative policy assessment performed in DYNAMIX, we illustrate why these measures might be worth serious consideration. A discussion regarding the political economy of the policies under scrutiny complements the analysis of their effectiveness and efficiency.

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Materials embodied in international trade – Global material extraction and consumption between 1995 and 2005

Cited by 239 publications

References 25 publications

A synthesis of carbon in international trade

A synthesis of carbon in international trade

The Distribution of Material Footprints in Germany

Policies for a More Dematerialized EU Economy: Theoretical Underpinnings, Political Context and Expected Feasibility

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