Imports boost UK CO2 emissions – government report
London, 3 July: Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from consumed goods and services in the UK emissions rose by 18%, or 115 million tonnes (Mt), over 1992-2004, according to a government report released yesterday. This contrasts with a 5% decline in national emissions over the same time, as reported to the UN as part of the country’s Kyoto Protocol commitments, says the report.

Prepared by the Stockholm Institute on Sustainable Development and the University of Sydney for the UK’s Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the report analyses the effect of CO2 emissions from imports and exports. Its findings suggest that governments may be understating their actual emissions due to the exclusion of imports and exports from national emissions inventories.

“Under international climate change agreements, we only have direct influence over our domestic emissions – and they are, and will remain, the basis for these commitments,” said UK Environment Secretary Hilary Benn. “But as we accelerate the move to a low-carbon economy, we must help business and individuals to understand and reduce the environmental impacts of the products and services they produce, sell or consume, wherever in the world they are made.”

Part of the rise is attributed to a change in trade patterns, with a discernible shift away from imports from OECD countries outside Europe (such as the US and Japan) to imports from non-OECD countries such as China and India, found the report. Manufacturing in these countries is less energy efficient and thus more carbon intensive, pushing up the embedded emissions from imports, says the report.

“These findings reinforce the need for a global approach to tackling climate change, based on a carbon market that stimulates action and investment in clean energy and energy efficiency in all economies,” said Benn. “Global trade provides massive benefits for poorer countries and developing economies. Importing less to the UK and other rich countries would have dire consequences for developing nations and it is only by economic growth that developing countries will have the resources to take action on emissions.”

Canadian bank CIBC earlier this year released a report which found that overall global emissions would be 500Mt lower had manufacturing not moved from North America to China.