Land-use emissions embodied in international trade

Hong, Chaopeng; Zhao, Hongyan; Qin, Yue; Burney, Jennifer A.; Pongratz, Julia; Hartung, Kerstin; Liu, Yu; Moore, Frances C.; Jackson, Robert B.; Zhang, Qiang and Davis, Steven J. (2022): Land-use emissions embodied in international trade. In: Science, Vol. 376, No. 6593: pp. 597-603

Abstract

International trade separates consumption of goods from related environmental impacts, including greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture and land-use change (together referred to as land-use emissions). Through use of new emissions estimates and a multiregional input-output model, we evaluated land-use emissions embodied in global trade from 2004 to 2017. Annually, 27% of land-use emissions and 22% of agricultural land are related to agricultural products ultimately consumed in a different region from where they were produced. Roughly three-quarters of embodied emissions are from land-use change, with the largest transfers from lower-income countries such as Brazil, Indonesia, and Argentina to more industrialized regions such as Europe, the United States, and China. Mitigation of global land-use emissions and sustainable development may thus depend on improving the transparency of supply chains.

• Item Type: Journal article
• Faculties: Geosciences > Department of Geography > Physical Geography and Land Use Systems
• Subjects: 500 Science > 550 Earth sciences and geology
• ISSN: 0036-8075
• Language: English