Energy and carbon embodied in the international trade of Brazil

Shifting the economic structure of a country towards energy-intensive industries may lead to significant effect on the environment. One of the major environmental impacts associated to such changes is the increase of the carbon dioxide emissions - the main factor behind the greenhouse effect. In the last decades, structural changes in the Brazilian economy were close related to changes in the country's trade specialization. This paper analyzes to what extent energy use and its associated CO2 emissions of Brazil in the 90's may be overloaded by changes in the country's trade specialization towards a more energy-intensive mix. This study finds that Brazil exported, in net terms, significant amounts of energy and carbon embodied in goods traded with the rest of the world in the 90's. In fact, some 6.6% of the final energy used by the industrial sector and around 7.1% of its C emissions are prompted by international trade. By overloading the country's energy use and its associated environmental damage (both local and global), this situation seems to contribute to increase not only local but also global environmental damage, since C leakage from non-Annex I countries due to international trade may lead to higher C concentration in the atmosphere.