Data_Sheet_1_Embodied Energy in Export Flows Along Global Value Chain: A Case Study of China’s Export Trade.docx

Energy issues are closely related to the development of human society and economy. Embodied energy is the total direct and indirect energy consumption required for the production of goods and services. In the context of the intensifying development of economic globalization and prosperity of international trade, embodied energy is considered as a better indicator to comprehensively reflect the nature of a country’s energy use than the direct energy use. The development of trade in value added (TiVA) accounting and global value chain theory has brought new ideas to embodied energy research. This study applies TiVA accounting to the study of embodied energy and establishes a complete framework to decompose the sources, destinations, and transfer routes of embodied energy in a country’s exports, and comprehensively depicts the embodied energy flows in China’s exports at the country and sector levels as an instance. The results show that China exports large amounts of embodied domestic energy use, and export is an important factor for the rapid growth of China’s energy and emissions. At the country level, the United States and EU28 are traditional major importers of China, and developing countries, such as Brazil, India, and Indonesia, are emerging markets. China’s embodied energy flows to different importers vary in terms of trade patterns, flow routes, and the embodied domestic energy intensities. At the sector level, the light industry and the services create more benefits, whereas manufacturing, such as chemicals and metal products, consumes more energy, and there is a mismatch between the main sectors that create economic benefits from exports and the main sectors that consume energy for exports. These results indicate that embodied energy of China’s exports has a great impact on global energy consumption and carbon emission, and the optimizing of China’s export embodied energy structure is conducive to global energy conservation and emission reduction. This article strongly suggests the importance of the global value chain decomposition framework in embodied energy research.

能源问题与人类社会及经济发展息息相关。体现能源系指为生产商品与服务所消耗的总量直接及间接能源消耗。在经济全球化日益加剧与国际贸易繁荣的背景下，体现能源被视为比直接能源消耗更能全面反映一个国家能源使用性质的更好指标。增值贸易核算（TiVA）和全球价值链理论的发展为体现能源研究带来了新的思路。本研究将TiVA核算应用于体现能源的研究，并构建了一个完整的框架，以分解一个国家出口中体现能源的来源、目的地及转移路径，并以中国出口为例，从国家及行业层面全面描绘了体现能源流动。研究结果揭示，中国出口了大量的体现国内能源使用，出口是中国能源和排放量快速增长的 重要因素。在国家层面，美国和欧盟28国是传统的中国主要进口国，而巴西、印度和印度尼西亚等发展中国家则是新兴市场。中国向不同进口国的体现能源流动在贸易模式、流动路径及体现国内能源强度方面存在差异。在行业层面，轻工业和服务业创造更多价值，而化学和金属产品等制造业则消耗更多能源，出口创造经济效益的主要行业与出口能耗的主要行业之间存在不匹配。这些结果表明，中国出口的体现能源对全球能源消耗和碳排放产生了重大影响，优化中国出口的体现能源结构有利于全球节能和减排。本文强烈建议在全球价值链分解框架在体现能源研究中的重要性。