Analysis of the Energy Embodied in Foreign Goods Trade of China

Abstract

In recent years, scientists have been increasingly interested in the energy embodied in traded goods among countries. In this article, the direct energy intensities in various economic sectors of China were calculated with the data of energy consumption and output value of each sector, and the input–output table was used to estimate the external energy consumption. The total energy intensity of all sectors was then obtained. From the data of international trade, the energy embodied in goods trade of China was estimated for the period of 1994–2001. During this period, the average energy intensity of imported goods was always higher than that of exported ones. As a country with a surplus in international goods trade, China actually imported net embodied energy in the past few years. The net embodied energy imported was at the same magnitude of the imported energy in the form of fossil fuels.