Global consumption-based deforestation carbon emissions and regional hotspots: 2001–2015

Abstract. The consumption-based carbon emissions dataset for deforestation is essential for developing effective emission reduction policies by offering an alternative perspective. Although previous studies have provided national-scale data on deforestation emission footprints, the global scale data with detailed and continuous spatial information is still lacking. Here, we created a global consumption-based carbon emissions gridded dataset for deforestation at a 1 km resolution for 2001–2015, integrating spatial data on road networks, deforestation, and forest carbon fluxes with country-level statistics on global trade. Our dataset reveals that trade-related carbon emissions induced by deforestation were 25.3 Gt CO₂e, constituting 31.0 % of global carbon emissions due to deforestation. Additionally, the top 20 countries are responsible for most of the consumption-based carbon emissions which contribute to over 80 % of the global total. While high-income countries are responsible for 68.8 % of hidden deforestation emissions in trade, the ones in lower-income counties are rising due to the notable consumption in higher-income areas. This new dataset help addresses the previous data gap in consumption-based global deforestation emissions, aiding the formulation of consumer-side emission reduction strategies and expanding the approaches for mitigating carbon emissions due to anthropogenic activities. Datasets are available at https://doi.org//10.6084/m9.figshare.28091879 (Tang et al., 2024).