The transfer of embodied carbon in copper international trade: An industry chain perspective

Resources Policy 52 (2017) 173–180

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The transfer of embodied carbon in copper international trade: An industry chain perspective

MARK

⁎

Di Donga,b,c, Haizhong Ana,b,c, , Shupei Huanga,b,c a b c

School of Humanities and Economic Management, China University of Geosciences, Beijing, China Key Laboratory of Carrying Capacity Assessment for Resource and Environment, Ministry of Land and Resources, Beijing, China Open Lab of Talents Evaluation, Ministry of Land and Resources, Beijing 100083, China

A R T I C L E I N F O

A BS T RAC T

Keywords: International trade Copper industry chain Embodied carbon emissions Network

The rapid development of the international mineral trade has provided a solid material foundation for economic developments worldwide. Accompanying mineral international trade, there is a huge amount of carbon emission transferred from importing countries to exporting countries, which masks the true distribution of global carbon emission and blurs the lines about the responsibility for preserving the environment. Aiming to explore the embodied carbon emissions, we construct an embodied carbon emissions network of copper concentrates and refined copper international trade (ECCR) for each year during the sample period from 2007 to 2014. We analyze structure features of ECCR international trade. There exists a large amount of potential transfer of carbon emissions. The external dependency on copper concentrates of China is not so high. The trade volume shows that China, Germany and the United States are net importers, Chile, Peru and Zambia are net exporters. Moreover, the trade volumes of main countries change within a narrow range. Considering that the changes of ECCR international trade, energy policies or emergencies are main factors to resources-oriented countries, sudden global economic events are main factors to importers. Combined with the economy of every country, we also analyze the embodied carbon intensity, which are significantly different of distinct type’s countries. Furthermore, the evolution rule of embodied carbon intensity of some developed countries is similar to some developing countries.

1. Introduction Copper concentrate and relevant products are the essential driving forces of the economy. Due to an imbalanced resource distribution, growing demand for mineral resources and relevant products, driven by their consumption, has increased the international trade. While the trade associated with copper concentrate and products is supported by mining and smelting processes (Li, 2015). Such processes not only consume natural resources, but also result in millions of tons of greenhouse gas emissions, particularly carbon dioxide (CO2) (Li, 2010; Yin and Cheng, 2010; Matthias, 1998; Bi et al., 2011; Cansino et al., 2016; Lan et al., 2016). Naturally, when a country exports copper products to other countries, it also drives embodied carbon emissions in those products. Therefore, the embodied carbon emissions are contained in final production in a given country, which will be transferred to final consumption (Chen and Zhang, 2010; ClarkeSather et al., 2011). However, due to the difference of economic structures and technology in different countries (Chaoxian, 2011; Reitler et al., 1987), the developing countries usually take the roles ⁎

of main exporting countries with high energy consumption and pollution. They carry more of the burden of reducing carbon emissions. Meanwhile, the obvious “domestic emissions and foreign consumption” pattern frees importing countries from the obligation of environmental conservation (Bednar-Friedl et al., 2012; de la Rue du Can et al., 2015). All these facts could lead to an imbalance of international trade and economic development. Thus, it is important to uncover the embodied carbon emissions in international trade for clarifying carbon reduction responsibility. The literature abounds with aggregate analyses of environmental issue, which enhances our understanding of embodied carbon transfer. For example, according to the research (Wyckoffa and Roopb, 1994) of six Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member states (Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States), accompanied with manufactured goods international trade, the embodied carbon imports accounted for 13% of its total emissions in the mid-1980s. Ahmad and Wyckoff (2003) also found that some OECD countries transfer large amount of embodied carbon, occupying about 50% of the total emissions. In addition, the

Corresponding author at: School of Humanities and Economic Management, China University of Geosciences, Beijing, China. E-mail address: [email protected] (H. An).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.resourpol.2017.02.009 Received 3 May 2016; Received in revised form 23 February 2017; Accepted 23 February 2017 0301-4207/ © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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OECD has reported the potential of environmental taxation to address the externality problem linked to CO2 emissions (OECD, 2011). So far, the life cycle assessment and input-output analysis (IOA) are widely used to study carbon emissions, especially the low-carbon emissions reduction policy of intra-regional trade and bilateral trade (Machado et al., 2001; Mongelli et al., 2006; Schaeffer and Leal De Sa, 1996; Tian and Jin, 2012; Wang et al., 2005). Furthermore, increasing studies find that the carbon leakage (Caron, 2012; Bednar-Friedl et al., 2012) and foreign investment (Tang and Tan, 2015) may make research results on untrue carbon emissions (Wang and Wei, 2014; Wang et al., 2014; Wiedmann, 2009; Zhou et al., 2013). Meanwhile, international trade involves a large number of countries and intricate trading linkages, which could be considered as a complex system. Complex network theory provides a method to analyze the embodied carbon transfer in international trade (An et al., 2014; Cao et al., 2006; Tian and Jin, 2012; Zhong et al., 2014). Nevertheless, quite a few scholars study the embodied carbon transfer of minerals in international trade by complex networks, especially combining some stages of an industrial chain. Therefore, we could use complex network theory to illustrate embodied carbon emissions. In order to pave the way for balanced and sustainable resource exchanges and clarify who is responsible for environmental preservation, it is necessary to study the flow direction and intensity of embodied carbon transfer. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to introduce the industry chain to embodied carbon transfer of the international trade. An embodied carbon emissions of copper concentrates and refined copper international trade (ECCR) model is developed, combined with production of copper concentrates and refined copper, which are two important stages in the copper industry chain. From the perspective of industry chain, we could analyze the embodied carbon transfer of international trade systematically, and optimize product structure and trade structure preferably as a whole. This paper is structured as follows: Section 2 introduces the data and model; Section 3 explains the main results; Section 4 presents the conclusions and policy implications.

ECI =

2.1. Data Data of concentrates and refined copper trade come from the UN Comtrade data base for the 2007–2014 period, involving import and export flows among around 200 countries. Each type of copper products has a code in terms of HS code. The HS codes of copper concentrates and refined copper in the database are respectively 2603 and 7403. Copper products are represented by 7405, 7407, 7408, 7409, 7410, 7411, 7412, 7415, 7418 and 7419. In addition, each country has an international ISO country code.

2.2.2. Complex network model The main idea of complex network theory is to consider the relationships among various parts of real complex systems as a complex network. The complex network model provides an innovative perspective to explore and analyze the complex systematic phenomena and structural characteristics based on a many-to-many node-edge relation. The complex network model G=(V, E) contains the nodes V and the edges E, where V ={vi:i=1, 2, …, n}, and n is the number of nodes; E ={ei:i=1, 2, …, m}, and m is the number of edges. We construct an ECCR model. In our model, the nodes are the countries; the edges are the trade relationships; the directions of the edges are the directions of the embodied carbon transfer flows; and the weights of the edges are the value of embodied carbon. The real ECCR network is composed of numerous countries and trade relationships, thus there are thousands of exporting and importing relationships. If country i exports embodied carbon to country j during year t, then the edge representing the trade relationship from i to j is drawn and aij(t) =1. Otherwise, no edge is drawn and aij(t)=0. If there is a relationship between i and j, the volume of embodied carbon transferred from country i to country j is denoted as wij. Fig. 1 shows the embodied carbon emissions net trade network in 2014. The definitions and formulations of some indicators in complex network theory are introduced combined with the study issue in this paper.

2.2. Method 2.2.1. The calculation of embodied carbon emissions A model is developed to calculate the embodied carbon emissions in international trade. Several indexes are introduced into this model: energy consumption standard required for producing ECCR, the coefficient of carbon emissions and the trade volumes of ECCR (Su et al., 2013; Xiao, 2010; Zhang et al., 2014). The functions are given as follows:

(INN − ENN )*M*N 1000

(1)

LCR =

(INR − ENR )*M*R 1000

(2)

LCNW = LCN +LCR

(4)

Where LCN refers to the net trade volume of copper concentrates. INN refers to the import volume of copper concentrates, and ENN refers to export volume the copper concentrates. M is the coefficient of carbon emissions (0.73257), which is drawn from Oak Ridge National Laboratory. N is the energy consumption standard of producing copper concentrates (0.0163tce/t), which is drawn from GB YS/T693-2009. LCR refers to the net trade volume of refined copper. INR is the import volume of refined copper, and ENR is the export volume of refined copper. R is the energy consumption standard of refined copper (0.420tce/t), which is calculated by GB 21248-2014. LCNW is the embodied carbon volume of copper concentrates and refined copper, which is a net value calculated by the trade of copper concentrates and refined copper. ECI is the embodied carbon trade intensity of copper concentrates and refined copper. Furthermore, the production of copper concentrate and production of refining are important stages of copper industry chain. Carbon emissions of these two stages are dependent on the direct or indirect source of energy used in those stages. Briefly, diesel (for trucks and mining equipment) and electricity are used in mining (copper concentrate production) stage (open cuts typically consume less electricity than underground). Coking coal and natural gas are the main energy sources in smelting. Electricity and natural gas are used in fire refining (refined copper production), and electricity is the main energy source used in electro-refining (Davenport et al., 2002). Moreover, the technologies used to produce copper are different among countries, and these technologies are associated with different emissions. However, 80% of the world's primary copper is produced by pyrometallurgical, and about 20% is produced by hydrometallurgical. Therefore, the difference caused by the pyrometallurgical technology is subtle, and the main variation among countries possibly is reflected on electricity generation technologies in the course of electro-refining. Concerning the electricity generation, we explore the energy sources. Table 1 shows Australia, Germany, India, Indonesia, United States, Japan, Mexico and China （group1）mainly use fossil-energy, whereas Chile, Canada, Zambia and Peru (group 2)utilize a large amount of nuclear or hydroelectric resources. Therefore, there is little difference among the same group.

2. Data and method

LCN =

LCNW GDP

(3) 174

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Table 1 List of countries with source of electricity 2014 Unit: GWh.

Australia China Germany United States India Indonesia Japan Mexico Peru Canada Chile Zambia

Coal

Oil

Gas

Biofuels

Waste

Nuclear

Hydro

Geothermal

Solar PV

Solar thermal

Wind

Other sources

151,849 4,115,215 284,911 1,712,577 966,520 120,332 348,830 33,881 312 64,718 26,006 0

5013 9517 5659 39877 22,696 25,782 116,435 33,006 560 7974 4584 410

54,394 114,505 62,270 1161333 62,969 56,287 420,825 171,962 20,893 61,355 12,480 0

3511 44,437 43,345 62357 23,908 925 28,928 1353 1291 5090 5327 0

0 12,956 13,503 19,412 1536 32 6595 77 0 265 0 0

0 132,538 97,129 830,584 36,102 0 0 9677 0 107,678 0 0

18,421 1,064,337 25,444 281,527 131,643 15,148 86,942 38,893 22,199 382,574 23,099 14,042

1 125 98 18,710 0 10,038 2577 6000 0 0 0 0

4854 29,195 36,056 21,915 4909 11 24,506 221 0 1756 489 0

4 34 0 2688 0 0 0 0 66 0 0 0

10,252 156,078 57,357 183,892 37,155 0 5038 6426 206 22,538 1443 0

0 0 4338 0 0 0 0 0 2261 291 0

Data Source: IEA.

The clustering coefficient is a measure of the degree to which countries in a network tend to cluster together, and it reflects the closeness of these countries, which is defined by Eq. (8).

a) The degree The degree represents the number of trade partners of a certain country in the ECCR international trade, and these terms are defined by Eq. (5). Where ki (t ) denotes the degree, and n (t ) is the total number of countries in the network during year t.

Ciw =

n (t )

∑ aij (t )

k i (t ) =

b) The incoming strength and outgoing strength In expressions (6) and (7), we have defined outgoing strength and incoming strength. They represent the total exporting and importing volume of a country in the ECCR international trade.

siin (t ) =

j, k

(8)

3. Empirical analysis of the ECCR network 3.1. The structure of ECCR network

n (t )

∑ j =1 wji (t )

∑ (wijn wjkn wkin )1/3

In addition, researchers used detecting algorithms to find communities in networks, modularity is an index to evaluate the quality of the partition. In this paper, we use the method that R.Lambiotte has studied (R. Lambiotte et al., 2009).

(5)

j =1

1 ki (ki−1)

(6)

Where and denote the incoming strength and outgoing strength, respectively. n (t ) Refers to the total number of countries in the network during year t. c) The weighted clustering coefficient and modularity

3.1.1. Scale of ECCR network Degree represents the number of countries. It is an index measuring how many countries share the relationships with a given country. The total number of edges represents trade relationships among countries, which reflects the coherence of countries, as shown in Fig. 2. As it is indicated, the number of countries involved in this trade is declining overall. However, it increases sharply in 2008. It means that the international trade of ECCR is more globalized after the U.S. mortgage subprime crisis. In addition, since the European debt crisis in 2010, the copper concentrate and refined copper markets has been pushed into a deep period of adjustment. In addition, the global mining economy has

Fig. 1. Embodied carbon emissions net trade network in 2014.

Fig. 2. Number of countries and trade relations of ECRR.

siout (t ) =

n (t )

∑ j =1 wij (t )

siin (t )

(7)

siout (t )

175

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Table 2 The comparisons of embodied carbon in the trade / ton. (1 ton= 1000kg). Import

Export

Net flow

Import

Export

Net flow

Australia Canada Chile China Germany Indonesia Japan Mexico Peru India United States Zambia

2011 5848.219 45.588 2007.445 932,437.487 203,319.485 16,181.541 81,657.722 5063.687 40.510 26,756.049 185,384.059 10,020.588

138,181.475 45,061.817 827,015.325 20,055.580 27,991.687 48,032.212 109,373.423 42,081.398 115,773.113 71,205.418 6995.868 229,347.611

−132,333.256 −45,016.229 −825,007.879 912,381.907 175,327.799 −31,850.670 −27,715.702 −37,017.711 −115,732.603 −44,449.369 178,388.190 −219,327.023

2012 7512.947 3.343 1844.842 1,103,158.171 185,324.706 31,101.652 65,818.011 5344.964 1.083 29,466.774 170,698.033 3094.701

138,914.507 39,752.046 889,038.731 30,987.455 50,353.772 25,481.259 166,951.150 29,323.551 122,051.113 77,720.784 36,487.663 246,347.565

−131,401.559 −39,748.703 −887,193.890 1,072,170.716 134,970.934 5620.393 −101,133.139 −23,978.588 −122,050.030 −48,254.009 134,210.370 −243,252.864

Australia Canada Chile China Germany Indonesia Japan Mexico Peru India United States Zambia

2013 2776.963 222.353 1873.295 1087,742.584 193,617.715 20,897.715 64,062.822 10,061.332 32.336 47,554.700 202,152.006 5760.967

150,839.299 57,219.638 839,710.570 69,125.761 37,371.128 26,643.845 173,197.491 15,783.935 133,201.727 83,062.906 24,356.016 287,817.790

−148,062.336 −56,997.285 −837,837.275 1,018,616.823 156,246.586 −5746.130 −109,134.669 −5722.602 −133,169.390 −35,508.207 177,795.990 −282,056.823

2014 375.721 7168.978 1438.375 1,226,629.168 191,098.589 277.110 74,927.077 10,768.628 126.859 31,204.494 161,085.289 3403.935

177,193.947 62,938.886 854,911.774 48,974.143 22,906.791 8537.144 153,988.359 212,545.669 46,395.177 108,726.138 36,311.932 289,986.013

−176,818.226 −55,769.909 −853,473.398 1177,655.025 168,191.797 −8260.034 −79,061.282 −201,777.041 −46,268.319 −77,521.644 124,773.357 −286,582.078

supplementary, as shown in Fig. 3. By contrasting the Fig. 3(1) and (2), it is obvious that China is both a net importer of embodied carbon based on the trade of copper concentrate and refined copper, and is a net importer of copper products, which means that it is responsible for not only the embodied carbon produced in its own country, but also the supererogatory embodied carbon imported from other countries. In other words, considering that the copper products, the import volume of embodied carbon is larger than the result we have measured in the paper. Therefore, China is a net importer of embodied carbon based on the copper industry chain.

brought multiple difficulties (falling prices, rising costs)，which led to the tough stage of trade.

3.1.2. Embodied carbon measurement results After we confirmed that the ECCR is a large-scale network, we get the measurement results of the embodied carbon. It is evident that Australia, Canada, Chile, China, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Peru, India, the United States and Zambia are the main countries to transfer embodied carbon. As it can be seen from Table 2, the net flow values of China, Germany and United States are positive, which reflects these three countries import copper concentrate and export refined copper, defining this pattern as a high-carbon structure. The net flow values of Chile, Peru and Zambia are negative, which reflects that these countries export more copper concentrate – a low-carbon structure. From the results, the actual demand-imports of copper concentrate can be estimated. Considering China as an example. The embodied carbon flow of China is 1,177,655.025 tons in 2014. Assuming that this embodied carbon originated from the copper concentrate trade, which could be converted to 98,631.07 tons of net copper concentrate flow. Based on this algorithm, China should reduce 98,631.07 tons of copper concentrate imports in international trade for the sake of cutting down 1,177,655.025 tons of embodied carbon. Therefore, China needs to import only approximately 11.7086 million tons of copper concentrate in 2014. In this scenario, the external dependency of copper concentrates in China is actually not so high. We measure the embodied carbon emissions based on the copper concentrate and refined copper international trade, however, refined copper can also be used in other production process, and ultimately included in products that are valued by consumers. Meanwhile, copper recycling is a very important process in production chain, and blister copper is further refined as either fire refined copper or anode copper (99.5% pure copper), which is used in subsequent electrolytic refining. However, the data and technology acquisition are limited from a global perspective. Moreover, copper concentrate and refined copper are main parts of producing carbon emissions (Bruno et al., 2013) and the most important stages in copper international trade. Hence, from the chain perspective, we also study the copper products international trade as

3.1.3. Embodied carbon trade volume In the ECCR network, node strength represents the embodied carbon volume transferred among trading countries. This article uses embodied carbon imports and exports to represent the incoming strength and outgoing strength. On the one hand, as shown in Table 3, the major importers of embodied carbon are China, the United States, Japan, India, and South Korea. In recent years, China has been the largest importer of embodied carbon due to the large amounts imports of copper concentrate. Germany is also a large importer of embodied carbon since Germany imports large amounts of refined copper. In addition, Switzerland ranks high, and its embodied carbon imports have increased since 2009. Compared with other developed countries, Japan has fewer import volume of embodied carbon and changes on small amplitude. On the other hand, the main exporters are Chile, Peru, Australia, Japan, Kazakhstan and Zambia. Among these countries, the exporting statuses of Chile, Peru and Zambia are relatively stable. Chile has the most abundant copper concentrate resources among all the countries and is the world's largest exporter of copper concentrate. Therefore, its production capacity exerts a tremendous influence on the copper concentrate and refined copper international trade. Political instability and labor disputes in Chile also have a direct impact on international trade. The out-strength ranking of Japan ranked No.6 in 2007, however, it ranked No.3 in 2012 and 2013, which is merely random fluctuations. Australia is the main copper concentrate and refined 176

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Fig. 3. The comparison of net weight of copper products and RC. Note: CR means copper concentrate and refined copper. Table 3 Main countries in the top 20% of strength ranking. 2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

Main countries in the top 20% of in-strength ranking China China China Germany Germany Germany Italy Italy United States United States United States South Korea South Korea South Korea Italy France Netherlands Switzerland

China Germany Italy United States Switzerland South Korea

China Germany South Korea Italy United States Japan

China Germany United States Italy Switzerland South Korea

China Germany United States Italy Malaysia Switzerland

China Germany Italy United States Switzerland turkey

Main countries in the top 20% of out-strength ranking Chile Chile Chile Kazakhstan Zambia Russia Russia Kazakhstan Zambia Zambia Peru Japan Peru Japan Peru Japan Australia Kazakhstan

Chile Zambia Russia Japan Peru Australia

Chile Zambia Papua New Guinea Australia Japan Peru

Chile Zambia Japan Kazakhstan Australia Peru

Chile Zambia Japan Australia Peru Kazakhstan

Chile Zambia Mexico Australia Japan Peru

Fig. 4. Embodied carbon flow direction of main countries in 2009 and 2014. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

demonstrated in Fig. 1. Embodied carbon transfer in copper concentrate and refined copper international trade has increased in most years overall. Table 4 shows the main importing countries and their imports in 2014. The data shows that China is the largest importer in 2014 and imports from many Asian countries, such as India, Japan and Kazakhstan. Moreover, Chile is a major importer of many countries, such as Canada, Japan and South Korea. Australia imports from some European countries. We also use the map to show the transfer flow. Fig. 4 shows that the changes of embodied carbon flow directions are relative small among countries. Table 5 shows the main exporters and their exports in 2014. The data also demonstrates that Chile is the largest exporter and exports to

copper trade country in Oceania and primarily exports to China and some Southeast Asian countries. It has a large amplitude of fluctuation in volume - possibly because of its geographical location. 3.2. Embodied carbon transfer of copper concentrate and refined copper trade Communities in the ECCR international trade network are represented by clusters of countries where trade relationships between countries in the same community are stronger than those between countries in different communities (Zhong et al., 2014). As shown in Fig. 4, different colors represent different communities, and countries in the same community are marked by the same color, which is also 177

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Table 4 Importers and imports of main countries in 2014. Importer and imports (ton) Australia

New Zealand 209.759

UK 63.785

United States 61.728

Brazil 24.389

Slovakia 7.959

Germany 5.928

Canada

Chile 2442.492

Mexico 1361.143

Tanzania 1160.024

Russia 985.615

Congo (K) 948.525

Congo (B) 155.620

Chile

Peru 1412.148

Bolivia 14.926

Morocco 11.270

Australia 0.003

UK 0.001

China

Chile 107,735.322

Australia 12,118.025

India 16.939

Japan 853.911

Peru 151.732

Kazakhstan 22,335.872

Japan

Chile 38,277.908

Australia 17,404.768

Peru 6430.953

Canada 5347.851

Papua New Guinea 2622.088

Philippines 2010.441

Korea

Chile 67660.089

Japan 5798.191

Australia 2024.543

Peru 1934.956

Brazil 1167.057

Indonesia 995.314

Peru

Bolivia 97.891

Ecuador 23.348

Saudi Arabia 5.620

United States

Chile 95,692.577

Canada 52,265.881

Mexico 7720.827

Congo (K) 4454.375

Bolivia 394.342

Peru 162.298

Zambia

Congo (K) 3349.307

Congo (B) 51.956

Mauritius 2.661

Botswana 0.010

Germany

Russia 43,646.106

Chile 37,595.307

Poland 311,98.679

Sweden 25,567.903

Finland 18,407.481

Belgium 9281.907

Note: Congo (K) Kinshasa; Congo (B) Brazzaville; United Kingdom (UK). Table 5 Exporters and exports of main countries in 2014. Exporter and exports (ton) Australia

China 85,075.252

Malaysia 31,825.588

Japan 28,841.893

Thailand 8736.129

Indonesia 5015.870

Vietnam 4258.711

Canada

United States 54,947.106

China 4449.942

Japan 1468.227

South Korea 730.210

India 318.196

Spain 179.044

Chile

China 368,818.585

United States 105,845.932

South Korea 67,660.089

Italy 57,013.816

Brazil 48,662.056

France 36,108.006

China

Vietnam 7712.949

Malaysia 7261.875

(CHK) 4334.009

Thailand 2066.686

Singapore 1005.221

Netherlands 564.347

Japan

China 69,211.802

Thailand 15,539.949

Indonesia 10,640.045

Malaysia 8159.165

South Korea 5798.191

Vietnam 4337.904

Korea

China 14,612.451

Thailand 2115.731

Pakistan 214.574

UK 71.484

(CHK) 54.742

Oman 23.351

Peru

China 23,929.255

Japan 5897.701

Germany 2898.687

South Korea 1934.956

Spain 1585.918

Chile 1543.249

United States

China 30,626.857

Thailand 791.955

South Korea 722.697

India 602.750

Brazil 302.667

Belgium 278.286

Zambia

Switzerland 168,996.903

China 73,444.511

Australia 14,396.122

Singapore 11,502.213

South Africa 5607.622

UAE 4775.188

Germany

China 9526.592

Italy 3371.737

Luxembourg 1378.915

Romania 1279.814

France 1131.085

Hungary 995.343

Note: United Kingdom (UK); China, Hong Kong (CHK); United Arab Emirates (UAE).

exports of embodied carbon transferred to developing countries accounts for approximately 60% of China's total embodied carbon exports in copper concentrate and refined copper trade in 2014. China has always been a major trading country, while unlike China, Russia is

multiple regions across the world. With regard to China, the imports of embodied carbon transferred from Chile, Peru, Zambia, United States and Canada accounts for approximately 82% of China's total embodied carbon imports in copper concentrate and refined copper trade, and the

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Fig. 5. Embodied carbon intensity of main countries from 2007 to 2014.

2007 to 2014. In view of Fig. 5(2), the evolution tendency of several countries (for example, China and Canada) presents analogously. The curve of embodied carbon intensity index decreased in 2007 and 2009 obviously. In addition, China, Japan, Canada, India, Singapore, Indonesia and Mexico demonstrate the convergent inclination of embodied carbon intensity over the course of time, as shown in Fig. 5(1). Moreover, these countries lie at a lower embodied carbon intensities, except for China; China’s embodied carbon intensity is significantly higher than those of the other six countries. While the embodied carbon intensity of the United States, Brazil, Germany, France, South Africa and Australia reduce gradually until 2013. Australia’s embodied carbon intensity is higher than those of other countries. Obviously, as contrasted with these three figures, the embodied carbon intensities of Chile, Peru and Zambia are significantly higher than those of all the other countries because of a large number of exports and a small number of imports of copper concentrate and refined copper. However, the situation is not always stable. For example, the embodied carbon intensity of Chile decreases on a large scale, perhaps because the mining industry in this country amounts for 20.7% of the GDP in 2007 but accounts for only 11% in 2013. Likewise, after the financial crisis of 2009, global copper prices rises sharply,

not a major trading country in 2009 and has fewer trade volume and trade relations. Whereas the trade volume increases sharply in 2014, and Canada and Germany mainly imports from Russia. In view of the changes, the embodied carbon flow directions among many countries are affected by geographical factors and national policies. For example, Australia mainly exports to neighboring countries; China rarely exports to the United States due to the high levy anti-dumping regulations (11.25%~60.85%) imposed by United States.

3.3. Embodied carbon trade intensity of copper concentrate and refined copper Embodied carbon intensity is an indicator for weighing the trade intensity of copper concentrate and refined copper. Embodied carbon intensity refers to embodied carbon emissions per unit of GDP, which is affected by many factors, such as the economic and technological levels, wealth, energy structures, economic structures, and population structures of a country or region. It is a key index for evaluating the relationship between a country's economic growth and carbon emissions growth. Fig. 5 shows the embodied carbon intensity of main countries from 179

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References

which greatly stimulates the production of copper in Zambia. Meanwhile, Zambia has sold two copper mines (KCM and Luanshya) to solve the problems left by history and increase production capacity, which led to a substantial increase in its embodied carbon intensity.

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4. Conclusion and policy recommendations This paper applied complex network to analyze embodied carbon transfer in copper concentrate and refined copper international trade. According to our results, we come to conclusions and provide related policy recommendations as follows: (1) The results suggest that there are massive redundant embodied carbon emissions in the international trade of copper concentrate and refined copper. Since the number of countries and trade relations of ECRR have been falling overall from 2007 to 2014, the transfer relations of trade countries become sparse. (2) The traditional calculation method of a product’s external dependency exists deviation. Actually, the external dependency on copper concentrates of China is not so high, the government perhaps overestimates the demand of copper concentrates and refined copper. Therefore, we should verify the actual demand and weigh the imports of copper concentrates and refined copper. The environmental effect from rising ECCR in international trade would be manageable through controlling the trade volume. Meanwhile, the industry agrees that the process of producing copper has almost reached a technological plateau in terms of energy efficiency. This means that further reasonable improvements in terms of energy efficiency are unlikely to be significant. Therefore, it is important to know the product’s external dependency, so as to balance the trade of copper concentrate and refined cooper. This method provides a perspective for measuring external dependency. (3) Based on the study of trade structures, the transfer of embodied carbon in copper concentrate and refined copper international trade is a relative stable system. The transfer volumes of main countries change within a narrow range. Considering that the changes of ECCR international trade, energy policies or emergencies are main factors to resources-oriented countries, sudden global economic events are main factors to importers. Accordingly, when in times of international crisis, countries could adjust the export-import strategy. (4) China, Germany and the United States are net importers in ECCR international trade, mainly importing from Chile, Peru, Australia, India and Japan. Chile, Peru and Zambia are net exporters in ECCR international trade. The transfer direction between countries is relative stable. However, we should realize that producers and consumers are both responsible for the responsibility of protecting environment. (5) From the perspective of copper industry chain, the embodied carbon intensity of the main countries in distinct types are significantly different. The evolution rule of embodied carbon intensity of some developed countries, such as Canada and Japan, is similar to some developing countries. With the growth of GDP, the embodied carbon intensity of Germany, France, Brazil, the United States, China, Indonesia, Canada, Chile and Peru are decreasing overall, which means that these countries have gradually achieved low carbon development pattern in copper industry. Acknowledgments This research is supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 71173199). The authors would like to express their gratitude to Weiqiong Zhong and Sida Feng who helped a lot during their work.

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