Environmental Impact Displacement Associated with the Spanish Energy Transition: From Fossil Fuels to Renewable Energy Technology Goods

A sustainable energy transition needs globally coordinated pathways that limit environmental impact displacement. However, current energy policies often overlook the duality of environmental and international trade factors. The lack of detailed data widens this gap, restraining energy system optimization models that guide policy development. In this work, we calculated the displaced environmental impacts of Spanish imports associated with energy products and trade partners for 2018 and 2021, comparing those displaced by fossil fuels and renewable energy technology. We used international trade data from the Spanish Tax Agency and environmental impacts embodied in trade indicators from EXIOBASE and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Our results show that Spanish imports of fossil fuels from its main trade partners, such as Russia, the United States, Nigeria, Mexico, and Algeria, concentrate larger quantities of displaced impacts than those of wind power components such as Permanent magnets and Wind turbines. Also, China concentrates the greatest proportion of displaced impacts for the exports of Permanent magnets and Wind turbines to Spain. Our method offers finer granularity than previous studies and a replicability capacity for different datasets and products. Our results can support energy system optimization to establish a more sustainable and global energy transition.