US Outsourcing for air pollution

                                                

As much as one-third of Chinese air pollution is related to goods that are exported from China, and some of that pollution blows across the Pacific. We find that, while outsourcing of manufacturing from the US to China has probably improved air quality in the eastern U.S. (where such manufacturing was previously located), it therefore worsens air quality in the western US.

                                            

The rapid economic growth in China over the past decade is the great expansion in the production of
goods for export (1). Although growth has slowed since the global financial crisis, between 2000 and 2007 the volume of Chinese exports grew by 390% (2). As the Chinese economy has grown, the economic structure has also changed, transitioning from a net importer to a large net exporter of energy-intensive industrial products. At the same time, China increased combustion of fossil fuels, relatively low combustion efficiency, and weak emission control measures have also led to drastic increases in air pollutants such as sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO), black carbon (BC), and primary organic carbon (OC).

                                 

China becomes the world’s largest emitter of anthropogenic air pollutants, and measurable amounts of Chinese pollution are transported via the atmosphere to other countries, including the United
States. However, a large fraction of Chinese emissions is due to manufacture of goods for foreign consumption.

                                               
International trade affects global air pollution and transport by redistributing emissions related to production of goods and services and by potentially altering the total amount of global emissions. The trade influences by combining an economic-emission analysis on China’s bilateral trade
and atmospheric chemical transport modeling. Analysis on US air quality shows that Chinese air pollution related to production for exports contributes, at a maximum on a daily basis, 12–24% of sulfate pollution over the western United States. The US outsourcing of manufacturing to China
might have reduced air quality in the western United States with an improvement in the east, due to the combined effects of changes in emissions and atmospheric transport.


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