Emission impacts of China’s solid waste import ban and COVID-19 in the copper supply chain
Name
s41467-021-23874-7.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
2.74 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
17a8a3582f5dd7f49d4b35087f1dbe93
Author(s)
Ryter, John
Fu, Xinkai
Bhuwalka, Karan
Roth, Richard
Olivetti, Elsa A
Date Issued
2021
Journal
Nature Communications
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Citation
Ryter, John, Fu, Xinkai, Bhuwalka, Karan, Roth, Richard and Olivetti, Elsa A. 2021. "Emission impacts of China’s solid waste import ban and COVID-19 in the copper supply chain." Nature Communications, 12 (1).
Version
Final published version
Abstract
AbstractClimate 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 CO2-equivalent emissions of up to 13 Mt by 2040. Increasing China’s refined copper imports reverses this trend, decreasing CO2e 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.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Materials Systems Laboratory
MIT Materials Research Laboratory
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1038/S41467-021-23874-7
