FAQs - China and embedded greenhouse gases
Q. The New Economic Foundation's recent report highlights the role that the UK's increasing demand for consumer goods is playing in increasing greenhouse gas emissions in China. China relies more heavilyon coal fired electricity than the UK and therefore significantly more greenhouse gases are emitted per unit of production in China than in Britain. In effect we are importing consumer goods from China and exporting greenhouse gas emissions in return.
I would like to ask what the Government is doing to quantify the extra greenhouse gas emissions in China that are needed to produce the goods we import to the UK and what is being done to reduce this. It makes little sense spending huge amounts of money to reduce emissions in the UK if we are exporting our manufacturing industry to China where industry is far less carbon efficient.
The greenhouse gas emissions required in China to produce goods exported to the UK should really be part of the UK's "greenhouse gas inventory" as they are emissions produced on our behalf. Do you agree?
A. Current international greenhouse gas emissions reporting guidelines require countries to report emissions at point of generation. Therefore emissions from Chinese industry are counted against the Chinese emissions total, irrespective of where products are shipped to.
As a party to the Kyoto Protocol the UK has specific responsibilities, amongst these to reduce emissions from the UK by at least 12.5% below base year levels during the first commitment period (2008 – 2012). The UK will not, and should not, unilaterally change its reporting methodology. Indeed such a change would be impossible. The Inventory is compiled according to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) rules and independently scrutinised by experts from the UNFCCC.
As part of its Sustainable Product and Consumption Evidence Programme Defra commissions research to enable a better understanding of the environmental impacts of UK consumed products along their supply chains. One study underway is investigating the possibility of developing an indicator for emissions embedded in imported goods and commodities. The methods for doing this are only starting to evolve and at this point it is not possible to allocate emissions from specific countries e.g. China, only to get a general indication of the embedded emissions contribution from imports to the UK in general. Early indications from this study indicate that embedded emissions from imports have been rising steadily since the early '90s. This is not an unexpected result given the reduction of UK manufacturing and increasing imports over this time period. The report is expected to be published in the near future.
Page last modified:
22 February 2008
Page published: 22 February 2008