Assessing environmental impacts on the global commons at subnational levels in China

From air and water quality to biodiversity protection, China is facing significant environmental challenges across the board. However, existing environmental benchmarks on environmental impacts are insufficient because they ignore the important issue of transboundary impacts and spillovers generated through trade and physical flows. Here, we apply a preliminary framework that integrates multiple dimensions into a comprehensive assessment to China's sub-national levels, which uses production-based accounting (PBA) and consumption-based accounting (CBA) to help to track environmental impact on the Global Commons within China. This study first revealed the position and difference of 31 provinces to the structure and spatial patterns of pollutants emissions in the economic context, then established China's sub-national assessment framework. The results probe into the impact of provinces in mainland China on the Global Commons, preliminary suggestions for policy action are given. This study found that most provinces generate negative impacts on the Global Commons, initial rating results show variations across spatial patterns are substantial. For example, the environmental impact of the wealthier eastern regions is significantly greater than that of northwest regions. In absolute terms, the biggest negative impact comes from the following provinces: Guangdong, Jiangsu, Henan, Shandong, and Hebei. Developed provinces experienced greater progress in their average scores, but still lower than developing provinces. In addition, there are still major gaps in the availability of data, especially in terms of biodiversity and water scarcity, China will benefit from access to more data. Overall, China has made some inroads in environmental improvement, but there is still a large spatial unbalance across regions. Spillovers effects account for a large share of environmental harms, policymakers need to pay attention to the cross-border spillover effects of regional behavior on the environmental condition of other regions. Our findings could help to improve the current understanding of Global Commons threaten at the subnational level and guide possible policy action from production to consumption.