Yufeng Huang

Yufeng Huang

14 June 2023

Regional Trade Agreement, Environmental clauses, Industry, Carbon content.

With the deepening of Regional Trade Agreement (RTA) from border rules to intra-border rules, environmental clauses have become an important component of RTA intra-border rules. The relationship between RTA environmental clauses and the export carbon content of industrial products is the core issue discussed in this article. It selects the export trade data (1995~2018) of 66 countries participating in the signing of 409 environmental rules in the RTA as samples, builds an expanded gravity model, and examines the impact of RTA environmental clauses on the carbon content of industrial export unit trade. Research has shown that the signing of RTA environmental clauses is beneficial for reducing carbon content in industrial trade, among which, North-North cooperation, South-South cooperation, and the signing of RTA environmental clauses between non-Asia Pacific countries are more significant for reducing carbon content, while North-South cooperation and the signing of RTA environmental clauses between Asia Pacific countries are not very significant for reducing carbon content. China should enhance the scope and intensity of environmental clauses in future RTA negotiations and force domestic reforms through high-level RTA negotiations, gradually improving domestic environmental regulatory measures and achieving the goal of high-quality economic development in China.

© 2023, the Authors. Published by ISCCAC

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license