| Autor: |
Ye Q; Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering Technology, University of Twente, 7522 NB Enschede, The Netherlands., Hertwich EG; Department of Energy and Process Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim NO-7491, Norway., Krol MS; Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering Technology, University of Twente, 7522 NB Enschede, The Netherlands., Font Vivanco D; 2.-0 LCA consultants, 9000 Aalborg, Denmark., Lounsbury AW; Department of Public Policy, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 6997801, Israel., Zheng X; School of Economics and Management, China University of Petroleum-Beijing, Beijing 102249, China., Hoekstra AY; Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering Technology, University of Twente, 7522 NB Enschede, The Netherlands., Wang Y; Fudan Tyndall Center and Shanghai Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Particle Pollution and Prevention (LAP3), Department of Environmental Science & Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai 200438, China., Wang R; Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering Technology, University of Twente, 7522 NB Enschede, The Netherlands.; Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML), Leiden University, Einsteinweg 2, Leiden 2333 CC, Netherlands. |
| Abstrakt: |
China's rapid growth was fueled by investments that grew more than 10-fold since 1995. Little is known about how the capital assets acquired, while being used in productive processes for years or decades, satisfy global final consumption of goods and services, or how the resource use and emissions that occurred during capital formation are attributable to past or future consumption. Here, enabled by a new global model of capital formation and use, we quantify the linkages over the past 2 decades and into the future between six environmental pressures (EPs) associated with China's capital formation and attributable to Chinese as well as non-Chinese consumption. We show that only 35% of the capital assets acquired by China from 1995 to 2015, representing 32-39% of the associated EPs (e.g., water consumption, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and metal ore extractions), have been depreciated, while the majority rest will serve future production and consumption. The outsourcing of capital services and the associated EPs are considerable, ranging from 14 to 25% of depending on the EP indicators. Without accounting for the capital-final consumption linkages across time and space, one would miscalculate China's environmental footprints related to the six EPs by big margins, from -61% to +114%. |
