Who Is Responsible For China's Carbon Emissions

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If a country makes goods for export and the manufacturing process emits carbon into the atmosphere, who is responsible for the emissions?

This is one of the questions that are being asked as a stalemate ahs been reached at the G8+8 talks. The Kyoto Protocol focuses on counting carbon emissions within national borders and the concern that has come up is that this may be inadequate in deciding who is responsible for emissions reduction.

Fair global agreements on climate change and trade might mean that a nation’s entire carbon footprint should also include imported goods and services manufactured elsewhere.

In a Tyndall Centre Briefing Note, Tao Wang and Jim Watson have shown that twenty three percent of China's carbon emissions are from the manufacturing of goods exported to industrialized countries. This is the equivalent of more than double the UK's emissions or the whole of Japan’s.

Wang and Watson provide evidence to international negotiations around climate change that not only are industrialized countries historically responsible for the majority of carbon emissions to date, but industrialized countries may also have significant responsibility for driving the rapid growth in emissions from industrializing countries.

In particular, the United States in argues against industrialized countries reducing their emissions unless new economies like China and India also do so. The US is the top importer of Chinese made goods.

Wang and Watson have calculated the carbon emissions of China’s exports in 2004, the most recent year of full data. Their results may be conservative because between 2004 and 2006, China’s export increased from $32bn to $177bn. China is considered to be the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide, having overtaken the United States.

Wang says that China is trying to reduce its energy use but there is only so much the national government can control in the face of high global demand and market price. "The government has tried to slow the expansion of energy intensive heavy industries by cutting tax rebates, but steel exports have increased by more than 200% driven by worldwide demand for cheaper steel from China. Though currently a small part of the Chinese economy, metals and cement are huge emitters of CO2”

Watson said: “Our results strengthen the argument that industrialized countries should move first to make real progress in cutting their carbon emissions – and also help nations like China and India to shift to a more low carbon path of development.”

When we buy goods from other countries we condone the conditions under which those goods were made and are thus partially responsible for those conditions.