The Globalized Automotive Industries Have Failed to Improve the Overall Carbon Productivity but Exhibit a Polarized Distribution

Improving carbon productivity is essential for simultaneously achieving sustainable development goals and tackling climate change. While the Global Value Chains (GVCs) division enhances productive efficiency, its impact on carbon productivity remains elusive. Here we integrated the GVCs theory with the Environmental Expanded Input-output model to investigate the highly globalized automotive manufacturing industry. We found that CO₂ emissions intensity, the inverse of carbon productivity, fluctuated between 0.37 and 0.47 kg/USD in automotive manufacturing GVCs during 2001-2021. Notably, developing economies nearly doubled their CO₂ emissions intensity during this period, whereas developed economies almost halved theirs. The global distribution of CO₂ emissions and value added is becoming increasingly unequal in industrial production and service segments. Lower production levels and energy efficiency in developing economies, coupled with their upstream roles in GVCs (raw materials and industrial parts suppliers), exacerbate these disparities. Our findings indicate that merely global labor division is insufficient to create low-carbon automotive manufacturing GVCs. Formulating emission reduction targets that consider the diverse roles of economies within GVCs, and supporting developing economies in boosting energy productivity, labor value added efficiency, and skill can help narrow the distribution gaps and enhance the carbon productivity of the entire automotive manufacturing GVCs.