Embodied energy uses by China’s four municipalities: A study based on multi-regional input–output model

Consumption demands in China’s megacities not only cause energy resource extraction within their own jurisdictional boundaries, but also impose huge energy resource requirements to other regions via interregional supply chains. This paper presents a multi-regional input–output analysis of energy uses embodied in final demand and interregional trade of China’s four direct-controlled municipalities, with the recently available Chinese 2007 multi-regional input–output table. The total embodied energy uses (EEUs) of Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing are 59.1, 60.0, 136.7 and 50.4Mtce in 2007, respectively. Shanghai has the highest per capita EEUs with an amount of 7.4tce, followed by Tianjin (5.4tce), Beijing (3.6tce) and Chongqing (1.8tce). Investment is the leading final demand category and accounts for respectively 53.1% and 55.8% of the total EEUs in Beijing and Chongqing. Meanwhile, the shares of energy uses embodied in exports are especially high in Tianjin and Shanghai, due to their location advantages and great economic openness. 98.9%, 92.1%, 51.2% and 35.6% of the EEUs in Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin and Chongqing are imported from China’s other regions, respectively. Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Hebei, Shaanxi, Heilongjiang and Xinjiang are the important “energy-saving helpers” for these megacities. The largest interregional net embodied energy-import sector is construction for all the four municipalities. Considering the embodied energy uses in urban ecosystems is important for policy makers to recognize visible and hidden energy uses within city boundaries and along the entire supply chains and address cross-boundary potentials for energy saving at the regional, national and global supply chains.