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With the rapid development of foreign trade in China, industrial import and export has been an absolute subject in recent years. The huge trade surplus of import and export trade of industrial products brings not only high profits, but also pollution costs as well. Based on the concept of water pollution footprints (WPFs), this study applies the input-output method and calculates pollutant-producing coefficients of 20 major industrial sectors in China and investigates the WPFs caused by the import and export trades of these industrial sectors. The research results show that WPF resulting from exports exceeds that of imports from 2011 to 2015 in China. The net inflow of pollution footprint is mainly from paper mills, printing and stationery manufacturing, and textile industry; whereas a great number of WPFs are transferred to other countries by these sectors, such as metal mining and dressing industry and oil and natural gas exploitation industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trade-related CO 2 emissions are an important component in global emissions. Understanding the role of international trade in emissions is of direct relevance to global and national emission reductions, particularly for major exporters and importers. In the literature, the issue has seldom been studied using index decomposition analysis (IDA), which is a popular tool in assessing growth in national-level CO 2 emissions. In this paper, based on a multi-region I-O analysis, we introduce three inter-linked IDA models to quantify the impacts of trade on the production-based emissions, the consumption-based emissions, and the emission balance of economies, respectively. A salient feature of the models, when applied together, is that they can help to assess the role of trade and the emission performance of economies from multiple perspectives. We discuss the relevant methodological issues as well as the advantages and limitations of the models. We then apply the models to evaluate the impact of international trade on changes in global CO 2 emissions from 1995 to 2009. It is found that while the growing trade volume drove up the total emissions, changes in the emission intensity and goods composition related to trade led to some degree of emission mitigation, particularly after 2005. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study seeks to contribute to the recent literature by empirically investigating the causal effect of urban population growth and international trade on environmental pollution of China, for the period 1980–2014. The Johansen cointegration confirmed a long-run cointegration association among the utilised variables for the case of China. The direction of causality among the variables was, consequently, investigated using the recent bootstrapped Granger causality test. This bootstrapped Granger causality approach is preferred as it provides robust and accurate critical values for statistical inferences. The findings from the causality analysis revealed the existence of a bi-directional causality between import and urban population. The three most paramount variables that explain the environmental pollution in China, according to the impulse response function, are imports, urbanisation and energy consumption. Our study further established the presence of an N-shaped environmental Kuznets curve relationship between economic growth and environmental pollution of China. Hence, our study recommends that China should adhere to stricter environmental regulations in international trade, as well as enforce policies that promote energy efficiency in the urban residential and commercial sector, in the quest to mitigate environmental pollution issues as the economy advances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The carbon dioxide embodied in Chinese exports to developed countries increased rapidly from 1995 to 2008. We test the extent to which institutional reforms in China can explain this increase. We focus on five areas of reforms: trade liberalization, environmental institutions, legal and property rights, institutional risk and exchange rate policy. Our results show that trade liberalization, weak environmental institutions, exchange rate policy, and legal and property rights affect emissions. Our results also indicate that the lack of reform in the utilities sector is an important factor in the rapid increase in embodied emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green technology progress refers to the advancement of the energy-saving technology based on input factors. China's opening up policy plays an increasingly important role in its economic growth. Therefore, this study verifies the influence of opening up on the country's green technology progress. This study sets up a 2 × 2 × 2 green technology progress model with two countries (a developed country and a developing country), two goods (cleaner goods and dirty goods), and two factors (labor and capital) to analyze theoretically the influence of trade on green technology; thereafter, four propositions are developed. A method for measuring green technology progress based on inputs is developed and alternative measurement models are introduced to test the correctness of the four propositions. Since the coefficient on import trade, a key index, does not yield significant results, this study concludes that international trade affects green technology progress by changing the labor-capital ratio, as well as the research and development (R&D) cost. This study further uses this deduction to examine countries characterized by different development levels. Our final goodness-of-fit results are satisfactory. This study concludes that China can develop its domestic economy through exports, but must enhance the supervision of exporting enterprises. In addition, imports from developed countries seem to be able to improve China's green technology and, most importantly, its ability to innovate and cultivate talent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how income-induced environmental policy differences and damage heterogeneity interact to determine the comparative advantage in a polluting activity. In a non-cooperative framework, North and South regulate two types of pollution, local pollution (e.g., air and water pollution) and global pollution (e.g., greenhouse gas emissions), each of which induces heterogeneous damages for consumers. I find that (1) North or South can have the comparative advantage in the dirty sector; (2) whatever the region with this comparative advantage, the worldwide level of global pollution can either increase or decrease with trade; (3) local and global emissions evolve symmetrically in each region with trade, even though pollution regulations may be asymmetric. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The results of the current study converge with prior research on how domestic and regional political economies and national security concerns influence the outlines of particular worldwide environmental governance proposals, the economic aspects of global environmental governance schemes, and the increase and effectiveness of market-based governance processes. The paper generates insights about the role of private economic participants in international environmental sectors, the underlying forces of transnational climate governance, and the performance and strength of environmental governance entities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Navies are the only resource that many states have to protect the international trading system, but naval authorities must be realistic about the complexity of the criminal threats they are likely to encounter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change and environmental policies are widely discussed, but much less is known about emissions embodied in goods traded internationally, and the distinction between emission producers and consumers. The carbon dioxide emissions embodied in international trade in Central European countries are subject to examination in this paper. As a result of industrial restructuring and environmental legislation, air pollution has improved significantly in Central European countries since the 1989 transition. On the other hand, economic growth has been accompanied by a rise in consumerism. Despite the increasing role of exports, the Visegrad group countries have become net importers of carbon dioxide emissions between 1995 and 2008. This seems to be the 'standard trajectory' of a country's transition toward a more developed and consumption-oriented economy. The global patterns of carbon dioxide emissions embodied in manufacturing exports are also mapped, using network analysis and constructing 'product space'. The analysis confirms that industrial re-structuring played an important role in lowering the production of carbon dioxide emissions in the Visegrad countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The technical variation between countries in the production of goods and services, in terms of not only input coefficients, but also emission coefficients, creates scope for international trade to reduce environmental pressures. For this purpose we extend the theory of trade and the environment as to accommodate technical variation between countries in production and emissions. We use and steer close to the extended input and output tables, which include emission data. By treating environmental standards analogous to capital and labor capacity constraints, the aggregation problem for economic and environmental measures gets the same format as the well-understood aggregation problem for labor and capital. In a pilot application we determine the gains to free trade in products and emission permits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As increasingly complex modelling approaches to quantifying embodied carbon in trade have become popular, the lack of disaggregation has been identified as a key weakness. This paper quantifies embodied carbon in bilateral trade at the product level. This is done using the material balance approach, by collecting product carbon intensity factors from multiple data sources and combining with bilateral trade data in physical quantities. The dataset covers trades between 195 countries for 1080 products in 2006. The detailed mapping of trade embodied carbon provides detailed insights into the nature of the flows that were previously masked or under-reported. For example, it finds that the lion's share of global trade embodied emissions are concentrated in a relatively small number of product categories of traded goods, suggesting that focusing mitigation efforts and trade-measures on these products would be an effective strategy to address potential carbon leakage, and to decarbonise international supply chains. The results also highlight that embodied carbon is focused in regional trade, thus regional harmonisation of climate mitigation policy will be effective in mitigating leakage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent analyses of the evolution and structure of trade in virtual water revealed that the number of trade connections and volume of virtual water trade have more than doubled over the past two decades, and that developed countries increasingly import water embodied in goods from the rest of the world to alleviate pressure on domestic water resources. At the same time, as demand continues to increase and climate change threatens to alter hydrological cycles, water scarcity is a growing problem. Does research into virtual water trade need to consider water scarcity and differentiate flows out of water-scarce regions from flows out of water-abundant regions? Previous studies sum and compare virtual water volumes originating in countries experiencing vastly different degrees of water scarcity. We therefore incorporate water scarcity into an assessment of global virtual water flows. We use input–output analysis to include indirect virtual water flows. We find that the structure of global virtual water networks changes significantly after adjusting for water scarcity. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The overall aim of this paper lies on presenting a short pragmatic image of the main aspects concerning the impact of international trade on the environment, on the one hand, and the impact of environmental policies and regulations on the international trade, on the other hand. Also, this article examines the multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) focused on the use of environmental trade measures. In the same context, we discuss about the most important international institution with the regulatory powers in international trade - environment relationship which is considered to be GATT/WTO. Although, the international trade-environment relationship is a very debated internationally, in Romania it is not sufficiently addressed either theoretical or practical. Taking into account the transition period and the consequences of the global economic crisis which still will affect Romania a period of time; our country promotes simultaneous strengthening and optimizing of trade and environmental policies in sustainable development framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the implications of a binary action, binary outcome decision problem for estimating risk. We use data on the invasiveness of biological imports to develop the first comparison of two classical methods--maximum likelihood and Bayesian--against a third, the recently developed maximum utility (MU) approach. MU estimation uniquely takes advantage of the structure of the decision problem, which depends on a local rather than global fit to the model. Extending methods to account for an endogenously stratified sample, we show that the MU approach is less sensitive to specification error and can offer significant economic gains under model uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global forest product value chains are increasingly subject to regulatory requirements, such as legality and sustainability certification. For African forest products, a shift in the export destinations of forest products towards China, the leading timber product manufacturer, has raised concerns that social and environmental product and process standards are declining. Aggregate drivers of this shift have been documented, yet there has been little enterprise-level analysis of Chinese actors in African timber imports based in China. This paper provides an initial analysis, highlighting implications for existing and emerging regulatory initiatives. Data show that although an increasing number of Chinese private enterprises is engaged in African timber imports, import volumes remain concentrated among a small number of geographically clustered private and state-owned firms. Government-led schemes are beginning to address timber legality concerns. But given China's growing domestic market for finished wood products, sustainability certification requirements driven by the US and EU will not be sufficient to ensure improved sourcing by Chinese firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How have the discourses of ‘trade-oriented food security’ and ‘food sovereignty’ contributed to apoliticsof international agri-food policy? Discourse is understood as the meanings given to phenomena (both social and physical) and the practices associated with those meanings. Consequently, metaphors are regarded as powerful sense-making constructs. In their classic forms, these two discourses constitute seemingly irreconcilable paradigms: one representing a hegemonic assertion of neoliberal economic rationalism, the other an oppositional and populist social movement. Analysis of public-facing discourse reveals distinctive meanings and metaphors concerning the role of trade in food security and in the conceptualisation of nature (particularly in reference to agricultural biotechnology) along with elements of co-construction. While both forms of discourse face challenges in retaining coherency, trade-oriented food security enunciates a poorly specified and increasingly arcane vision, relatively unconcerned with ecological sensitivities and resource constraints. New opportunities for the discourse of food sovereignty may involve continuing to specify and exemplify a politics of the particular founded on agro-ecological practices. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A large literature in international political economy views individuals’ trade policy preferences as a function of the income effects of economic openness. We argue that the expected environmental consequences of free trade play a noteworthy role for protectionist attitudes that has not been noted so far. We use unique Swiss survey data that contain measures of individuals’ environmental concerns and different aspects of trade policy preferences to examine whether those who are more concerned about the environment also hold more protectionist trade policy preferences. Our results support this expectation. Individuals who are more concerned about the environment tend to think that globalization has more negative than positive effects, more strongly support jobs-related protectionism, and place more emphasis on aspects that go beyond price and quality when evaluating foreign products. Our results suggest that also the expected environmental consequences of free trade matter for trade policy preferences and not just the potential effects on the domestic wage distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to define a shared responsibility criterion for analysing the impact of international trade on CO2 emissions applied to sectors. With the approach proposed it is possible for sectors in a country to account for only a part of the emissions associated with exported and imported goods. The agents considered as responsible for pollution are sectors two-fold: as producers and suppliers of intermediate inputs and final demand (accounting for direct emissions linked to production), and as consumers of intermediate inputs required for production (accounting for direct and indirect emissions linked to consumption of inputs), and the countries and foreign sectors that trade with these industries. The responsibility of emissions is shared by all the participants along the global product chain depending on the value added of each step. The criterion is applied to the Spanish economy for the period 2000 to 2005, and proves useful for determining what economic policies may be suitable for mitigating anthropogenic impact on the environment and for including all the agents of the supply chain in the development of sustainable supply chain management. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Global trade is increasingly being challenged by observations of growing burden shifting, in particular of environmental problems. This paper presents the first worldwide calculations of shifted burden based on material flow indicators, in particular direct and indirect physical trade balances. This study covers the period between 1962 and 2005 and includes between 82 and 173 countries per year. The results show that indirect trade flow volumes have increased to around 41 billion tonnes in 2005. The traded resources with the highest share of associated indirect flows are iron, hard coal, copper, tin and increasingly palm oil. Regarding the burden balance between regions, Europe is the biggest shifter whereas Australia and Latin America are the largest takers of environmental burden due to resource extraction. To evaluate the findings from a global perspective, the results are analysed in terms of resource flow induced environmental pressure related to a country's land area in terms of total and per capita area. Resource endowment and population density seem to be more relevant in determining the physical trade balance, including indirect flows, than income level. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Virtual water trade is increasingly recognized as a useful metaphor for thinking about freshwater resources in an international context. Its legitimacy in terms of economic theory has been questioned by a number of authors, however. In this article I develop new theoretical results that place the virtual water concept on a firm economic foundation, and which correct several misconceptions within the existing literature on virtual water economics. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Seahorses ( Hippocampus spp.) are globally threatened by overexploitation and habitat destruction; they are also regarded as susceptible to heavy exploitation due to some of their life-history traits. From an economic perspective, they are fishes with high monetary value and marketability. Seahorses are now listed in Appendix II of CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora), to ensure that the international trade is not detrimental to the survival of wild populations; the effectiveness evaluation of these international controls needs comparable monitoring data, including evaluation of spatial and temporal trends. This study assesses the seahorse trade in Brazil, aiming to detect trends in catch levels, volumes and prices. Our main findings were: the dried trade was unregulated, without formal records, and primarily domestic, although records of unreported exports existed; it was primarily sustained by incidental captures in trawl nets. The live seahorse trade was mainly destined for exports, and regulated through national quotas. Between 2002 and 2009, mean prices for dried seahorses ranged from US$1.06 ± 0.46 (level 1 traders) to US$2.78 ± 0.68 (end-sellers) each, while mean prices for each live seahorse traded on the domestic market (1997-2009) ranged from US$1.13 ± 0.02 (level 1 traders) to US$10.08 ± 1.71 (retailers). Mean declared export price (2006-2008) was 15.57 ± 10.87. Enhanced implementation of the CITES listing in Brazil will require further research, and additional measures to address both direct and indirect fishing pressure on seahorse populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seeking to limit global warming to 2°C puts narrow restrictions on the remaining carbon budget. While the prevalent accounting framework for carbon emissions is production based (Production-Based Principle, PBP), we here quantify the CO2 emissions on the basis of the Consumption-Based Principle (CBP) for Austria. At a methodological level, a Multi-Regional Input–Output model with full linkages is used to account for Austria's CO2 responsibility on a global scale. Estimates are carried out for the years 1997 and 2004. Results show that during 1997 CO2 responsibility based on CBP were 36% larger than those based on PBP. This relation has increased through time. The CBP indicator of 2004 was 44% larger than the PBP. In terms of carbon emission location, for each Euro spent on Austrian final demand in 2004, it is estimated that two-thirds of the CO2 emissions occur outside Austrian borders. Regarding the origin of the emissions embodied in imports, it is estimated that about one-fourth originated in non-Annex I countries in 1997. This proportion increased to one-third by 2004. Due to this divergence between CBP and PBP indicators, there is a need to re-think current accounting bases in order to properly assign CO2 responsibilities. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Over 30,000 species of animals and plants that are, or may be, detrimentally affected by international trade are listed on the Appendices of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES). The Convention aims to regulate transboundary trade in species and their derivatives through a system of permits and certificates, and to ensure that such trade conforms to the principle of sustainability. In the developing world, a considerable component of its biodiversity lives outside protected areas where governments have limited potential to manage wildlife. Based on selected vertebrate and plant species, this paper concludes that: (1) use of wildlife in developing countries is more likely to be an imperative rather than a choice; (2) the legal instruments of CITES have limited capacities to ensure that international trade is sustainable; (3) sustainable use of species is best achieved by gaining the support of affected local communities; (4) community support can be maximized by the devolution of ownership or user rights of species from the state to, e.g., the communal level, and the development of effective economic incentive structures to prevent alternative land-use strategies; (5) countries in southern Africa have pioneered devolution of ownership/user rights to the district/communal level; (6) in combination with effective CITES trade controls, trade opportunities, rather than trade restrictions, are most likely to assist in the development of incentive-driven conservation strategies; (7) to avoid negative incentives and to increase awareness of livelihoods, the international CITES community may need to consider whether CITES Appendices I and II listing decisions should be based not only on biological/trade criteria but also on socio-economic considerations, if it is in the conservation interest of the species concerned; (8) a strategic cooperation with the Convention for Biological Diversity (CBD) could improve strategies for sustainable trade; (9) while incentive-driven conservation can provide significant longer-term potential for the protection of animal and plant species, it may be most difficult to achieve for species whose high-value products have a long tradition in medicinal use and (10) the conditions under which incentive-driven conservation is most likely to promote sustainable use need to be clearly identified. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This study analyzes the impact of economic growth and international trade on the level of air pollution. This is done by the estimation of the Structural Equation Model with two factors describing the structure of economic activity and air pollution intensity. It is further assumed that there is causal link between these two factors and that they are influenced by per capita income, international trade intensity and the Freedom House Index. The estimation results suggest that in the developing countries analyzed both international trade and per capita income lead to changes in the structure of economic activity and – as a consequence – to the increase in air pollution. In addition, the estimation results suggest that the impact of economic growth on air pollution intensity varies between the developing and developed countries. In the developing countries, this impact occurs through the change of the structure of economic activity, while in the developed countries, this impact is mainly direct and occurs through the sum of the scale effect and income effect. The positive sign of this impact suggests the dominance of the scale effect over the income effect. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

1. Many invasive species are introduced by trade, and there is a need for studies of pre-emptive measures to lower the risk of introductions, as post-establishment management is often extremely costly or nearly impossible. 2. In this study, we present a generic model for the first step of the invasion process for trade-imported pests, and further develop this model for potentially harmful bark beetles to assess the risk of introductions and alternative management options. 3. Our results suggest that introductions of bark beetles are likely, given present timber import practices, and that immigration may often go undetected by pheromone traps. 4. The most effective measures for reducing introduction risk were those aimed at isolating the storage from forest (storage enclosure, location) followed by those reducing the available resources for forest pests (debarking, timber irrigation, rapid processing), whereas delayed import was least effective. 5. Synthesis and applications: The generic model framework of species introductions presented here may easily be adapted to other import systems. The submodels of population dynamics and dispersal are also quite general, and we expect our qualitative results to hold in many cases, although the models were parameterized for bark beetles in this study. Our results suggest that detection of dispersal from storage to forests will be difficult, which implies that management actions should not be deferred until after detection in nature, as the pest species may then already be established and eradication may be too late. However, pre-emptive measures reducing propagule pressure at one or several stages of the introduction process, in particular isolation measures, may strongly reduce introduction risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The environmental requirements of the international trade are frequently used for the developed countries as technical barriers to the market access for the developing countries. To know these requirements is especially important for the sector of agricultural defensives (pesticides). Thus, this Article seeks to identify the main environmental requirements regards to the agricultural defensives, showing the importance of the same ones for the foreign trade of the developing countries, especially Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trade may be an important factor driving over-exploitation of endangered species. Often, however, there are fundamental gaps in our knowledge of such trade: how are market chains structured and how do they operate? What drives demand? This paper investigates trade in Abies guatemalensis Rehder, a conifer species on CITES Appendix 1 and listed as vulnerable in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The aim is to contribute to the development of an effective conservation policy in Guatemala. Data were collected from December 2004 to August 2007 through a nation-wide survey using standardised open-ended interviews with plantation owners (n =26), retailers (n =67) and urban consumers (n =993). Triangulations of estimated traded amounts and prices, combined with an assessment of own-reported values, indicate that the findings were reliable. Illegally wild harvested branches move from collectors to regional and local wholesalers and finally to urban based retailers who assemble the branches on a pole (hereafter semi-natural trees). This is in parallel to legal trade in certified trees from plantations. The number of traded illegal semi-natural A. guatemalensis and plastic Christmas trees increased dramatically during 2002–2005; demand for other types of Christmas trees remained at low levels. In the same period, prices significantly increased for semi-natural A. guatemalensis trees but remained constant or fell for other Christmas trees. This is explained by rising per capita incomes, a strong cultural preference for the uniquely scented A. guatemalensis, significantly higher price of certified legal plantation trees and ineffective implementation of existent legislation. The importance of increasing legal supplies, e.g. through decreasing plantation production costs and involving local communities in managing in-situ resources, is emphasised. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This article focuses on environmental repercussions and trade theory. The purpose of this article is to incorporate environmental repercussions into international trade theory so that one can study their impacts on volume, terms and even direction of trade. Until recent years, economists paid little or no attention to the environmental repercussions in connection with the international division of labor. Comparative advantage was figured only in terms of money costs, with the social cost of environmental disruptions completely overlooked. Under the new state of social awareness, trade specialists must show how externalities can be incorporated or internalized into their discipline. The capacity of a nation to absorb pollution is a national resource. Its value can be arrived at by imputation or by adding the cost of pollution abatement. A simple way of introducing the environmental repercussions into the trade model is to insist that each country repair completely or partially the disruptions. This article has demonstrated both theoretically and empirically that environmental repercussion is amenable to incorporation into international trade theory with interesting results.

The article discusses how the consumer culture keeps the rate of emissions high. According to the author, when governments focus on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, they focus on the pollution created in their country despite the fact that some of the consumer goods are produced in other countries. An overview of a report by researcher Edgar Hertwich and colleagues investigating the global carbon footprint through a trade-linked model is presented.