The impact of the rise of emerging economies on global industrial CO2 emissions: Evidence from emerging economies in Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership

Abstract The rise of emerging economies has changed the production structure of the global industrial chain, which in turn has had a significant impact on global industrial CO2 emissions. As the most representative countries among the emerging economies, the developing countries in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) have become the leading supplier for global industrial chain over the past decade. To study the impact of the rise of emerging countries in RCEP on global industrial CO2 emissions, we proposed a new structural decomposition analysis method using the global environmentally extended multi-regional input–output table. A quantitative analysis using a multi-regional input–output table shows that if the emission intensities remain unchanged in 2010, the increase in these countries’ proportion of supply of final demand and supply of intermediate input resulted in an increase of 2,068 and 87 million tons (Mt) in global CO2 emissions, respectively. The counterfactual analysis shows that China and the Association of Southeast Asia's (ASEAN) participation in the global value chains would increase global CO2 emissions in 2010–2015, but the emissions from Chinese energy and raw material production has gradually slowed or reversed. Simultaneously, the emissions embodied in global industrial chains from ASEAN have increased. Emerging economies should pursue a low-carbon way in consumption patterns and production technologies, and global mitigation efforts should prioritize support to the emerging emitters with green technology.