THE EMBODIMENT OF CARBON ASSOCIATED WITH BRAZILIAN IMPORTS AND EXPORTS

National statistics designed to determine domestic greenhouse gas (GHG ) emissions usually do not take into account the embodiment of carbon in international trade flows, thus failing to reflect that countries i ndirectly emit GHG by importing non-energy goods. As a matter of fact, by becoming more services oriented and importing increasing quantitie s of energy-intensive goods from developing nations, developed nations are transferring part of their carbon emissions to developing economi es, with a consequent impact on the global environment. The reduction of carbon emissions in developed nations due to lower energy intensiti es is of no help for the global warming problem if it is accompanied b y increases in carbon emissions in developing nations caused by export s to developed notions. This paper estimates the amount of energy and carbon embodied in the non-energy exports and imports of Brazil for th e period 1970-1993 in order to determine whether or not the internatio nal trade of carbon rich products is a problem worth addressing in the case of Brazil. The estimates show that the carbon content of exports was considerably higher than that of imports from 1980 on. In 1990 th e difference, expressed as a fraction of Brazil's total carbon emissio ns, was 11.4 percent, or some 8.3 million tonnes of carbon. The signif icance of these findings for Brazil's future energy and emissions poli cies is discussed.