Impact Of Foreign Trade On Yangtze River Delta’s Energy Consumption And Environmental Pollution

The proportion of import and export trade in China’s economy has increasedyear by year. The Yangtze River Delta as a traditional trading power in Chinaoccupies an important position. The Yangtze River Delta’s export trade has led tochallenge and threat to its environment because energy and pollution intensiveproducts are its major export goods.Using the input-output analysis method, this paper finds that Yangtze RiverDelta’s energy consumption and environmental pollution embodied in trade hasrised rapidly since1997. Since the energy and pollution embodied in exportincreased faster than their correspondences embodied in import, the net energy andpollution embodied in trade enlarged swiftly. Structural decomposition reveals thatthe rapid change of the energy and pollution embodied in export was primarily dueto the export scale and the efficiency effect had distinctly decreased itsdevelopment.The structural effect also contributed to the aggravation ofenvironment, but is not the fatal factor.