Evolution and Drivers of Energy Embodied in Intermediate and Final Trade Between China and the World

Abstract

The increasing fragmentation of global supply chains has led to a new phase of international trade with intermediate products comprising a remarkable share. For China as the biggest energy consumer and trading nation, its energy use related to the trade of intermediate products has not yet been fully understood. To fill the gap, this study develops the concept of embodied energy resources to establish an all‐inclusive energy trade budget for China, from exploitation to intermediate production and to final consumption. By combining the input‐output analysis and structural decomposition analysis, the evolution and drivers of energy resources embodied in China's intermediate and final trade are systematically explored for the period 1995–2018. We find that energy resources embodied in China's intermediate trade grew faster than those in final trade. Mining stood out in intermediate trade, while Transport and Service were prominent in final trade. The Global North played a key role in China's trade for final consumption, whereas the Global South had a close relationship with China in production‐driven intermediate trade. Energy efficiency gains made more obvious contributions to saving energy resources embodied in intermediate trade, while production structure changes posed more evident impacts on energy resources embodied in final trade. Taking full account of trade heterogeneity, this study highlights the importance to distinguish intermediate trade from final trade, especially when the former accounted for around 80% of energy use embodied in China's international trade.

The Coordinated Effects of CO2 and Air Pollutant Emission Changes Induced by Inter-Provincial Trade in China

“…In recent years, with the deepening of scientific research, there has been an increasing focus on how to more effectively reduce embodied carbon dioxide and atmospheric pollutant emissions. A series of measures have been taken to reveal the driving factors behind the changes in embodied emissions [10,[29][30][31][32][33]. There are mainly two methods for decomposing influencing factors: one is index decomposition analysis (IDA) [34], and the other is structural decomposition analysis (SDA) [35].…”

“…In addition, some studies have introduced more socio-economic factors to explore the inherent connections between regions, enriching our understanding of regional cooperation and supply chains [36,37]. Although there is a rich body of research on the driving factors of embodied carbon dioxide and atmospheric pollutant emissions, previous research related to SDA has mainly focused on a single emission type, neglecting the synergy among various emissions under the influence of the same driving factors [31][32][33]. This, to some extent, has limited the application of policies related to synergistic emission reductions.…”