Energy and air emissions embodied in China - U.S. trade: Eastbound assessment using adjusted bilateral trade data

It is critical to understand environmental impacts embodied in the bilateral trade between China and the United States, given the political, economic, and geographical importance of the two countries and the fact that few studies have investigated this before. This article studies the environmental impacts, particularly energy consumption and air emissions, embodied in the eastbound (from China to the U.S.) trade from 2002 to 2007 using an environmental input-output analysis technique and theadjustedbilateraltradedata. Ingeneral,tradevolumeincreased until the panic of 2008, and shifting trade patterns cause fluctuating embodied energy and air emissions in trade in China. Results show that embodied energy ranges from 7 to 11 exajoule (EJ) and takes about 12-17% of China's energy consumption. Embodied CO ₂ ranges between 400 and 800 Mt and represents about 8-12% of China's CO ₂ emissions. SO ₂ and NO _x embodied in the eastbound trade generally grow over this period, from 4.2 to 6.3 Mt and from 1.4 to 2.9 Mt, and account for 10-15% and 8-12% of China's total emissions, respectively.