Accounting Of Embodied Energy In International Trade And Analysis Of Its Driving Factors

Producers and consumers of products are separated by international trade.Accordingly,energy use embodied in tradable products is also transferred in geographical space.With developments of economic globalization and international trade,this separation has expanded continuously in recent years.Calculation of true energy consumption of each country has also been biased upwards or downwards.Hence,accounting of embodied energy use in international trade is needed for a fair division of energy conservation and emission reduction responsibilities.This paper constructed a multi-regional input-output model to calculate embodied energy use of 39 countries during 1995-2011 and used LMDI method to decompose the driving factors of embodied energy use.The main findings are as follows.At the global level,over the aggregated embodied energy use increased year by year,and international trade played a more important role in the global energy use structure.At the regional level,countries with large embodied energy outflow were Russia,Canada and the Netherlands,characterized by abundant natural resources,and highly developed OECD countries,such as the United States and Japan.Larger inflows countries are also highly developed OECD.Regarding net flows,countries with net outflows are mainly featured with abundant natural resources.On the other hand,countries with net inflows can be divided into two groups.One is OECD countries,and the other is big developing countries such as China and India,They are characterized by rapid economic development in recent years.Regarding the ratio of embodied energy of import and export,we found that countries with high ratio of embodied energy of export are energy rich ones,such as Russian and Canada,and developing countries with energy-intensive products exported,such as India and Indonesia.On the other hand,countries with high ratio of embodied energy of import are advanced economies with a large amount of imported products,such as Japan,South Korea and EU countries.Spatial transfer patterns of global energy use embodied in trade presented several clear channels.One main channel is from natural-resource-rich Russia and Canada to advanced economies,such as the U.S.,the EU and Japan.Another significant channel of embodied energy flows is from developing to developed countries.Besides,regarding energy use based on production and consumption principles,we found that countries with large energy use are OECD countries like the U.S,Japan,the EU countries,and large developing countries such as China and India.However,energy use per capita of developed countries is higher than that of developing countries.China's embodied energy outflows and inflows had a clear upward trend from 1995 to 2011.The direction of embodied energy outflow is from China to advanced economies,such as EU,the U.S.,South Korea and Japan,while countries with big energy inflows to China are South Korea and Russia.Regarding net flows,net ouflows are from China to advanced economies,such as EU,the U.S.,South Korea and Japan,while net inflows are from South Korea,Russia and Indonesia to China.At industrial levels,high embodied energy sectors are the energy-intensive industry.Besides,we found that the ratios of embodied energy use of import and export presented declining trends,and were lower than the world average level.In addition,this paper used the LMDI decomposition method to analyze five driving factors of embodied energy use,namely: import and export scale,energy intensity,industrial structure,economic output and population.The result showed that the increase in the scale of exports would drive up embodied energy outflows.Similarly,an increase in the scale of imports will lead to the rise of embodied energy inflows.The energy intensity effect of each country was found to be negative,indicating that an decrease in energy intensity could drive down embodied energy inflows and outflows.From the LMDI decomposition results,industrial structure effect varied from country to country.Furthermore,an increase in the share of secondary industry could drive up embodied energy flows.what's more,we found that the economic output effects of these 39 countries were positive,indicating that this effect was attributed to embodied energy inflows and outflows.Finally,the LMDI decomposition results revealed that the population effect was also attributed to embodied energy flows,specifically for populous countries,such as China,India,and the U.S.In addition,we analyzed the contribution ratio of each effect of these 5 driving factors.Specifically,the energy intensity effect was a major contributor to reducing embodied energy outflows and inflows,while the economic output effect drove up embodied energy use.Additionally,the contribution of economic output,industrial structure and population effects was smaller than those of other factors.Hence,in order to reduce embodied energy use,apart from technological progress and energy intensity reduction,industrial structure adjustment and an decrease in the ratio of the secondary industry should be highly encouraged because it played a vital important role.