Emission impacts of China's solid waste import ban and COVID-19 in the copper supply chain.

Autor: Ryter J; Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA., Fu X; Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA., Bhuwalka K; Materials Systems Laboratory, Materials Research Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA., Roth R; Materials Systems Laboratory, Materials Research Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA., Olivetti EA; Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA. elsao@mit.edu.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Nature communications [Nat Commun] 2021 Jun 18; Vol. 12 (1), pp. 3753. Date of Electronic Publication: 2021 Jun 18.
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-23874-7
Abstrakt: Climate change will increase the frequency and severity of supply chain disruptions and large-scale economic crises, also prompting environmentally protective local policies. Here we use econometric time series analysis, inventory-driven price formation, dynamic material flow analysis, and life cycle assessment to model each copper supply chain actor's response to China's solid waste import ban and the COVID-19 pandemic. We demonstrate that the economic changes associated with China's solid waste import ban increase primary refining within China, offsetting the environmental benefits of decreased copper scrap refining and generating a cumulative increase in CO 2 -equivalent emissions of up to 13 Mt by 2040. Increasing China's refined copper imports reverses this trend, decreasing CO 2 e emissions in China (up to 180 Mt by 2040) and globally (up to 20 Mt). We test sensitivity to supply chain disruptions using GDP, mining, and refining shocks associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, showing the results translate onto disruption effects.
Databáze: MEDLINE