'Chinadependence' in the UK as the World goes into 'Ecological Debt' - STWR

India, China & Asia

Latest

News Alerts

'Chinadependence' in the UK as the World goes into 'Ecological Debt'

On Saturday 6th October 2007 the world as a whole went into ecological debt driven by over-consumption. 'Ecological debt day' is the date when, in effect, humanity uses-up the resources the earth has available for the year, and begins eating into its stock of natural resources.

9th October 07 - New Economics Foundation (NEF)

Click here to view the full nef report

World ecological debt day has crept ever earlier in the year since humanity first began living beyond its environmental means in the 1980's. The latest available data reveals that the overuse of the earth's resources is much more extreme in rich countries. For example, if everyone in the world wanted to live like people in the UK, on a very conservative estimate, we would need more than three planets like Earth.

This is just one of the findings of a new report from nef, Chinadependence: the second UK Interdependence report, published in association with the Open University. Released on the day that the world as a whole goes into ecological debt - marked internationally by the Global Footprint Network - Chinadependence reveals the many ways in which Britain is becoming increasingly dependent on the rest of the world to fuel our high-consuming lifestyles. In particular, Chinadependence reveals a striking rise in our dependence on a wide range of Chinese imports. And, because the greenhouse gas pollution that results from their manufacture is blamed on China, not the consumers in the UK, we are turning China into our 'environmental laundry' with devastating consequences for the planet.

Chinadependence also reveals that Britain's dependence on the rest of the world for basics like food and energy is still rising. The report, the second overview of the UK's place in the international system by nef, shows that the burden in terms of resource consumption that our lifestyles exert on the fields, forests, rivers, seas and mines of the rest of the world is still increasing despite increased public concern about climate change. This comes as other research shows that a high quality of life is as easy to achieve at very low levels of consumption as at high levels, and as awareness is growing that the pursuit of high-consuming lifestyles undermines well-being.

During the recent banking emergency people feared that the UK would slide from a liquidity crisis into an insolvency crisis. Few saw the link between easy credit and over-consumption that is leading to a far worse problem: an environmental insolvency crisis. This report shows the urgent need to develop a sensible and positive pattern of interdependence between the UK, the rest of the world and the earth's life-support systems," says Andrew Simms, lead author of the report and nef policy director.

As the world creeps closer to irreversible global warming and goes deeper into ecological debt, why on earth, say, would the UK export 20 tonnes of mineral water to Australia, and then re-import 21 tonnes? And why would that wasteful trade be more the rule, than the exception. In the face of collective challenges like global warming, it makes clear that the UK's patterns of interdependence will have to change if our economy is to become remotely sustainable."

Our twentieth century politics of short-termism and self interest leave us lost in the face of climate change and the downsides of globalization. This report helps us see the long threads of connection - ecological, cultural, and economic - that span our interdependent world. In doing so it writes a new map of our urgent political responsibilities." adds Joe Smith, of the Open University, co-ordinator of the Interdependence Day project and report contributor.

The report reveals that the UK is drifting into ever greater 'Chinadependence.' We are ever more clothing ourselves, furnishing our homes, watching television, listening to music, playing games with our children and even decorating our Christmas trees, courtesy of goods manufactured in China. For example:

In the last year alone, our spending on imports from China rose 18 per cent to £15.6 billion and, more important environmentally, imports rose 10 per cent by weight to a total of just under 6.5 million tonnes.
Over the past five years, our spending on, and the weight of imports have risen by over 125 per cent and 114 per cent respectively.
In 2006, we imported 60,000 tonnes just of Christmas decorations.

China has become the 'environmental laundry' for the Western world. China is increasingly blamed for its levels of pollution in general, and its rising greenhouse gas emissions in particular. But it is demand from countries like the UK which leads to smoke from Chinese factories and power plants entering the atmosphere. Because China's energy mix is more fossil-fuel intensive than those of Europe, Japan or the USA, it also means that outsourcing to China creates more greenhouse gas emissions for each product made.

As China is increasingly attacked because of its rising pollution levels, people overlook two important issues. First, per person, China's greenhouse gas emissions are a fraction of those in Europe and the United States. Second, a closer look at trade flows reveals that a large share of China's rising emissions is due to the dependence of the rest of the world on exports from China - a Chinadependence," adds lead author and nef policy director, Andrew Simms.

There is also the fact that a lot of heavy industry has simply relocated to China from apparently cleaner, richer nations - when our major retailers scour the world for the cheapest production costs, the result is that more greenhouse gases get pumped into the atmosphere for every product we buy. Because of the way that data on carbon emissions gets collected at the international level, this has the effect of 'carbon laundering' economies like those of Britain and the USA," he concludes.

The report also shows that ecologically wasteful trade with the world as a whole is still rife in the UK economy. Amongst several examples of economic and environmental inefficiency the report reveals that in 2006 alone:

From all trading partners in total, the UK imported 14,000 tonnes of chocolate covered waffles, and exported 15,000 tonnes.
We both imported from and exported to Italy, 600 tonnes of, 'gums and other jelly confectionary'.
We sent 21 tonnes of mineral water all the way to Australia and brought 20 tonnes all the way back.
The large, two-way traffic of beer between Spain and the UK is also almost identical in amount

The report shows that the UK's growing interdependence with the rest of the world is both a fact and an opportunity. But, the report says, we are currently abusing it - by living so far beyond our environmental means and running up ecological debts we deny millions who go without, the chances for a better life and we put the planet's life support mechanisms in peril. Amongst other trends, the report reveals that Britain's dependence on basics like food and energy is still rising, and shows an economy increasingly dependent on international trade:

The UK's ability to feed itself is still declining: for all food, the UK's self-sufficiency is now 27 per cent lower than it was in 1990, and has dropped seven per cent since 2002. Continuing a trend begun in the early-to-mid 1990s, the UK's self-sufficiency in providing food continues to fall. Even allowing for changes in the way the Government calculates its figures, our ability to feed ourselves, without depending on imports from overseas, is at its lowest ebb for half a century.

The UK is less able to meet its own energy needs: since losing self-sufficiency in 2004, our 'energy dependence' has increased almost four fold. In 2004, the UK lost its status as an energy independent nation. Since then we have relied on imports to balance supply and demand. Even though the country has huge untapped renewable energy sources, including some of the best supplies of potential wind energy in Europe, our dependence on energy imports is increasing.

Britain's dependence on international trade is increasing despite rising fuel prices and fears about climate change: International trade makes up a growing share of the UK's income. Trade as a share of GDP is at its highest point for over four decades and on an upward trend.

There is also a human price to be paid by the rest of the world for our lifestyles. We are still highly reliant on overseas workers to staff our schools and hospitals draining some of the world's poorest counties of vital human resources. And, the report reveals, increases in overseas aid, have been dwarfed by money from developing countries deposited in UK banks.

The UK still relies on health workers from poor countries: As issues of immigration refuse to leave the mainstream political debate, the reality appears to be that many of our vital public services could not function without the arrival of skilled professionals from overseas. In the last five years alone, the UK has imported 289 trained nurses from Malawi, 364 from Botswana and 757 from Zambia. South Africa, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho and Zimbabwe also send nurses trained in the health systems of Africa to work in the NHS. The popular myth of the UK being a soft-touch for health tourists, masks a reality in which we are being tended in our sick beds by nurses that many poor countries can ill afford to lose.

UK: important aid donor or haven for money on the run? According to figures from the Bank of England, in 2006, money from developing countries deposited in UK banks surged by over $124 billion - around $10 billion more than in 2005 - lifting total deposits to $514 billion. In 2006, nef revealed that in spite of the UK Government's commitment to increasing its aid budget, another barely noticed trend, the rise in money from developing nations deposited in UK banks, cast questions over the nation's financial role in relation to developing countries. Overall, a range of factors will be influential but, generally, the removal of controls over the movement of money around the world, and 'capital flight' are both likely factors.

Chinadependence reveals how the nation is being woven into an ever closer and more complicated international economic, cultural and social fabric, with both positive and negative consequences.

A positive future, the report suggests, will only be guaranteed through a paradigm shift in government policy away from 'beggar-thy-neighbour' economic competitiveness, towards the cooperation demanded by our inescapable interdependence. As a minimum commitment to positive global interdependence, the report calls on the UK government to:

Adopt the ecological footprint as an official measure, with a timetable, policies and resources to move the UK to live within its fair, per capita share of available global biocapacity - so-called 'one planet living'.
Commit to reversing the decline in the UK's food self sufficiency alongside a published timetable.
Commit to year-on-year greenhouse gas emissions reductions in line with a minimum cut of 80 per cent by the year 2050. This could be achieved by following the road map to an 80 per cent cut in UK emissions by 2050 set out by Craig Simmons, technical director of Best Foot Forward.
Commit to greater energy security and independence by introducing significant measures for demand reduction, increased efficiency, deployment of renewable energy technologies and the introduction of more efficient, mini and medium scale grids for distribution.
Take action to prevent the UK being a haven for dubious capital flight from developing countries.
Compensate developing countries where a brain and skills drain of publicly trained professionals - such as from health services across Africa - benefits the UK.
Celebrate the public enrichment that comes from living in a society comprised of many cultures that is part of an interdependent world. And, as part of that, to publicly acknowledge the day in the year when, in effect, the UK stops depending on its own means, and begins to live off the rest of the world.