Abstract The role of energy for the developmental process of nations is a known fact due to being crucial input for any phase of production of goods and services. That’s the reason why countries that are rich in energy resources also have strategic power in terms of the international trade of these resources. On the other hand, it becomes important to provide energy security for countries that are resource-poor. Although green energy has become preferred one, fossil fuel energy keeps its place as one of the most used energy resources. That's why in this study it is aimed to determine major providers and users of coal as a type of fossil fuel energy resources. It is vital to investigate the structure of global coal trade structure to determine the weaknesses and strength of supply and use of coal. Network approach provides a holistic view to the system analyzed and presents more realistic (high-degree) indicators to analyze it. In this study, global trade network of coal is analyzed from 2000 to 2017 via network analysis. Changing structure and evolution of global coal trade has been revealed via some topological parameters which are specific to complex networks such as density, clustering, assortativity/disassortativity, centrality and degree distribution.

中文翻译：

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全球煤炭贸易的另一种观点：复杂网络方法

摘要能源在国家发展过程中的作用是众所周知的事实，因为它是商品和服务生产任何阶段的关键投入。这就是为什么能源资源丰富的国家在这些资源的国际贸易方面也具有战略实力的原因。另一方面，为资源贫乏的国家提供能源安全变得很重要。尽管绿色能源已成为首选，但化石燃料能源仍是最常用的能源之一。因此，本研究旨在确定煤炭的主要提供者和使用者作为一种化石燃料能源。研究全球煤炭贸易结构的结构，以确定煤炭供应和使用的弱点和强度，至关重要。网络方法为所分析的系统提供了整体视图，并提出了更现实的（高度）指标来对其进行分析。本研究通过网络分析方法分析了2000年至2017年的全球煤炭贸易网络。全球煤炭贸易的结构和演化的变化已经通过一些拓扑参数得以揭示，这些拓扑参数是复杂网络所特有的，例如密度，聚类，分类/分解，集中度和程度分布。