国内外碳足迹研究进展述评

在全球气候变化的宏观语境下,“碳足迹”成为公共生活领域中的一个热门术语.然而,学术界对碳足迹的概念内涵、测算方法、衡量单位及适用范围等的理解尚未形成统一意见.本文首先对国内外学术界关于碳足迹的概念内涵进行梳理和述评,从终端消费和全生命周期两个方面界定碳足迹,以此与“生态足迹”、“碳排放”等术语相区别；其次,从产品、家庭、企业及类似组织、城市和区域、国家和地区等不同尺度对碳足迹的研究进行综述,比较了碳足迹测度的不同方法和标准,发现“自下而上”的生命周期评价和“自上而下”的投入产出分析方法适用于不同的研究尺度；最后,对进一步的研究方向做了展望,指出应尽快明确碳足迹的概念内涵,避免泛化和滥用,并尝试构建一种综合性的碳足迹测度方法.

A Critical Review on Carbon Footprint

In the context of global climate change, Carbon Footprint has become a hot topic in the public. However, in academia, there is no consensus about the intension and extension, the measurement method and unit, and the application scope of this term. Based on the literature review, the connotation of carbon footprint is defined and limited to the context of final consumption and full life cycle in this paper, which means “Carbon Footprint” should be differentiated from “Ecological Footprint” and “Carbon Emission”. This is followed by discussing the research advances in products, families, enterprises and similar organizations, cities or regions, and Countries or economies respectively. After that, varieties of measurement methods and standards of carbon footprint are discussed, and the result shows that there are two different directions of calculating carbon footprints methodologically: bottom\|up, based on Process Analysis (PA), i.e. full Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), or top\|down, based on Input\|Output analysis (IOA), and each of two approaches is applicable to specific scales. Finally, the emphasis and direction of the future research, which include defining the connotation of the conception of carbon footprint to avoid abuse and combining the strength of both methods to construct a detailed and comprehensive hybrid approach, are proposed.