Pollution outsourcing damaging progress of greenhouse cuts
The government says that a new deal must be reached in order to address the problem of carbon emissions from imported goods.
The government says that a new deal must be reached in order to address the problem of carbon emissions from imported goods. The UK has decreased carbon dioxide emissions by almost 20 per cent since 1990, but its footprint has increased by the same amount, cancelling out the effect of this progress.
The UK reduction largely relies on a move from coal to gas and a move of manufacturing from the UK to countries like China; very little, if any of the decrease is due to policy changes.
Tim Yeo, the Chairman of the Energy and Climate Change Committee says, "Successive governments have claimed to be cutting climate change emissions, but in fact a lot of pollution has simply been outsourced. We get through more consumer goods than ever before in the UK and this is pushing up emissions in manufacturing countries like China."
A change in UK policy would mean consumption based emissions, rather than production, must be used to measure the country’s progress. This is not a straight-forward proposition however, as a raft of new policies will be required to deal with overseas emissions.
This is not the only problem; the Department of Energy and Climate Change believes it is too difficult to calculate these outsourced emissions. "We account for our emissions according to international rules that are followed by all countries that are signed up to the Kyoto Protocol, and that are the basis for international negotiations on climate change. Ultimately, the best way to reduce the UK's consumption emissions is to persuade all countries to manage down their territorial emissions through a global deal on climate change."
Some would say that this stance is a little too convenient, in that the UK would require considerably less policy intervention to reduce emissions than a manufacturing country like China or India. It seems unlikely that the UK would shift to this new measure as it would make it virtually impossible to achieve the huge emissions reduction targets the government has set.
