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Many developed countries 'outsource’ over a third of their carbon dioxide emissions associated with consumption of goods and services. These findings support an ethical argument for rich nations to lead global attempts to cut emissions, say scientists at the Carnegie Institution for Science.

Carbon Emissions ‘Outsourced’ to Developing Countries - Carnegie Institution for Science

EU 'Imports' a Third of its Carbon Emissions - Richard Black, BBC

Link to scientific study: Consumption-Based Accounting of CO2 Emissions - Steven J. Davis and Ken Caldeira, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)

9th March 2010

Carbon Emissions ‘Outsourced’ to Developing Countries

8th March 2010 - Carnegie Institution for Science

A new study by scientists at the Carnegie Institution for Science finds that over a third of carbon dioxide emissions associated with consumption of goods and services in many developed countries are actually emitted outside their borders. Some countries, such as Switzerland, “outsource” over half of their carbon dioxide emissions, primarily to developing countries. The study finds that, per person, about 2.5 tons of carbon dioxide are consumed in the U.S. but produced somewhere else. For Europeans, the figure can exceed four tons per person. Most of these emissions are outsourced to developing countries, especially China.

“Instead of looking at carbon dioxide emissions only in terms of what is released inside our borders, we also looked at the amount of carbon dioxide released during the production of the things that we consume,” says co-author Ken Caldeira, a researcher in the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology.

Caldeira and lead author Steven Davis, also at Carnegie, used published trade data from 2004 to create a global model of the flow of products across 57 industry sectors and 113 countries or regions. By allocating carbon emissions to particular products and sources, the researchers were able to calculate the net emissions “imported” or “exported” by specific countries.

“Just like the electricity that you use in your home probably causes CO2 emissions at a coal-burning power plant somewhere else, we found that the products imported by the developed countries of western Europe, Japan, and the United States cause substantial emissions in other countries, especially China,” says Davis. “On the flip side, nearly a quarter of the emissions produced in China are ultimately exported.”

Over a third of the carbon dioxide emissions linked to good and services consumed in many European countries actually occurred elsewhere, the researchers found. In Switzerland and several other small countries, outsourced emissions exceeded the amount of carbon dioxide emitted within national borders.

The United States is both a major importer and a major exporter of emissions embodied in trade. The net result is that the U.S. outsources about 11% of total consumption-based emissions, primarily to the developing world.

The researchers point out that regional climate policy needs to take into account emissions embodied in trade, not just domestic emissions.

“Our analysis of the carbon dioxide emissions associated with consumption in each country just states the facts,” says Caldeira. “This could be taken into consideration when developing emissions targets for these countries, but that’s a decision for policy-makers. One implication of emissions outsourcing is that a lot of the consumer products that we think of as being relatively carbon-free may in fact be associated with significant carbon dioxide emissions.”

“Where CO2 emissions occur doesn’t matter to the climate system,” adds Davis.  “Effective policy must have global scope. To the extent that constraints on developing countries’ emissions are the major impediment to effective international climate policy, allocating responsibility for some portion of these emissions to final consumers elsewhere may represent an opportunity for compromise.”

The report is published online in the March 8, 2010 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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EU 'Imports' a Third of Its Carbon Emissions

9th March 2010 - Richard Black, BBC

Rich countries including several EU nations are "importing" about a third of their CO2 emissions, says a study.

US-based researchers used a global trade database to track goods and services, and assigned emissions to the countries where they were used.

Nearly a quarter of China's emissions come from goods exported to the West.

Writing in the journal PNAS, the researchers say this is an ethical reason why rich countries should lead global attempts to cut emissions.

"We expected to find this net flow from developing countries to the developed world," said lead researcher Steve Davis.

"But what stood out was how much of the global flow is accounted for by bilateral trade between China and the US."

China recently passed the US to become the most highly-emitting country.

But 22.5% of China's emissions are generated during production of goods and services consumed overseas, and 7.8% are embodied in exports to the US alone.

However, when countries' emissions are calculated this way, the US is less of an "emissions importer" than some European countries.

The study found that Austria, France, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK import about a third of their emissions.

Tough Assignment

Under the UN climate convention, greenhouse gas emissions are allocated to the countries where the gases are generated.

But increasingly, academics and environmental groups have argued that this is unfair. It means, for example, that a Briton can buy goods made in China; he or she gets the benefits of these goods, but the emissions are assigned to China.

The EU currently produces just under 10 tonnes of CO2-equivalent per citizen.

But in some EU nations, imported goods and services account for a further four tonnes per head of population, this latest study found.

The counter-argument is that making the goods benefits the countries where they are produced as well, by providing jobs and income.

A few years ago, the dispute had little practical significance because academics struggled to produce comprehensive figures for consumption-based emissions.

Dr Davis acknowledged that things are still far from perfect. The Middle East is one region, he said, where the supply of data is poor.

But, he pointed out, his study uses the most recent year for which data is available - 2004 - and is able to split the world into 130 units, many of them individual countries.

Dieter Helm, the Oxford University professor of energy policy who has conducted a lot of research in the same field, observed: "What all these exercises show is that production-based figures are highly misleading and in particular flatter Europe and the US.

"What the authors fail to conclude is that the Kyoto-based approach [using production-based emissions] is fatally flawed, and that the case for border carbon taxes is very considerable."

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