Transfer of China’s inter-city embodied carbon and value-added and its inequality: From perspective of value-added trade

Based on Chinese city-level MRIO table of 2012 and 2017, this study use the value-added trade statistical method to account cities’ production- and consumption-based carbon emission and value-added, analyses inter-city embodied carbon and value-added transfer of traditional value chain, simple value chain and complex value chain, and reveals the inequality of the embodied carbon and value-added transfer. The study found that: 1) Cities with high production-based carbon emission are mainly resource-based and industrial cities of the Yellow River, the Bohai Rim and eastern Inner Mongolia, and the cities with high consumption-based carbon emission are mainly the national and regional central cities east of the Hu’s line. Cities with high production- and consumption-based value-added are mainly located in coastal urban agglomerations and inland central cities. 2) Inter-city embodied carbon transfer accounts for about 80% of the total carbon emissions, with over half of this transfer occurring along complex value chains, and the embodied carbon is primarily transferred from resource-based and industrial cities in the north to national and regional central cities across provinces; in traditional and simple value chains, the proportion of net embodied carbon transfer within provinces is relatively higher, mainly manifested as net transfers between resource-based and industrial cities and their transfers to provincial capitals. Heavy manufacturing industry, electricity, heat, gas and water production and supply industry and service industry are the main sectors of embodied carbon outflow, and construction industry, service industry and heavy manufacturing industry are the main sectors of embodied carbon inflow. 3) In the traditional value chain, coastal cities have become high-value areas with net inflows of added value by shifting out service products. Cities with net outflows of added value are widely distributed in the northwest, northeast, and central China. In both simple and complex value chains, driven by the final demand for construction and services from central cities, more resource-based and industrial cities have a net inflow of value-added through the transfer of intermediate goods from heavy manufacturing, mining, and the production and supply of electricity, heat, gas, and water. 4) In the traditional value chain, cities with net outflow of embodied carbon but lost added value account for a relatively high proportion, and are distributed more and more in the northern region. In the simple and complex value chains, most of the embodied carbon net outflow cities obtain added value, but there is still an unequal exchange of lower added value with higher carbon emissions. Yulin, Ordos, Tangshan and Yinchuan suffered from high levels of inequality across all three value chains.