Regional trade agreement burdens global carbon emission mitigation

Abstract

Regional trade agreements (RTAs) have been widely adopted to facilitate international trade and cross-border investment and ultimately promote economic development. However, ex ante measurements of the environmental effects of RTAs to date have not been well conducted. Here, we estimate the CO2 emission burdens of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) after evaluating its economic effects. We find that trade among RCEP member countries will increase significantly and economic output will expand with the reduction of regional tariffs. However, the results show that complete tariff elimination among RCEP members would increase the yearly global CO2 emissions from fuel combustion by about 3.12%, which doubles the annual average growth rate of global CO2 emissions in the last decade. The emissions in some developing members will surge. We therefore stress the necessity of balancing carbon mitigation and the pursuit of economic profitability. The technological advancement of emission mitigation and more effective climate policies for international trade are urgently required to avoid undermining international efforts to reduce global emissions.