Assessing Embodied Carbon Emission and Its Intensities in the ICT Industry: The Global Case

With the intensification of globalization, the information and communication technologies (ICT) sector, as one of the emerging industrial sectors, has played an important role in reducing carbon emissions in regional trade and improving the energy efficiency of traded products. This article uses a multi-regional input-output (MRIO) model to explore the flow of embodied carbon emissions and embodied carbon emission intensities in the ICT sector triggered by trade in 15 major economies around the world from 2000 to 2014. The article further discusses the emission-reduction strategies of each ICT sector. The results show that: (1) The overall embodied carbon emissions of ICT have demonstrated a significant downward trend, but the proportion of embodied carbon emissions caused by trade is increasing; (2) The embodied carbon emissions in the ICT sector of most developed countries in 2014 are significantly lower than in 2000, but in developing countries such as China and India they show an upward trend during this period; (3) The ICT sector’s export embodied carbon emission intensity in Indonesia is much higher than that of other countries, and the embodied carbon emissions of ICT exported by Mexico have increased significantly; (4) The manufacture of computer, electronic and optical products (S1) is the main contributor to the ICT sector’s embodied carbon emissions, while import embodied carbon emission intensities among publishing activities (S2) are increasing significantly in most countries. The conclusion of this paper has important implications for how to reduce ICT’s embodied carbon emissions of major countries.