How Outsourced Carbon Emissions Became A Major Problem

[bluewave]

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/climate/outsourcing-carbon-emissions.html

https://buyclean.org/media/2016/12/The-Carbon-Loophole-in-Climate-Policy-Final.pdf

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3215011/

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-04337-y

Over the past decade, both the United States and Europe have made major strides in reducing their greenhouse gas emissions at home. That trend is often held up as a sign of progress in the fight against climate change.

But those efforts look a lot less impressive once you take trade into account. Many wealthy countries have effectively “outsourced” a big chunk of their carbon pollution overseas, by importing more steel, cement and other goods from factories in China and other places, rather than producing it domestically.

Dr. Hasanbeigi is an author of a new report on the global carbon trade, which estimates that 25 percent of the world’s total emissions are now being outsourced in this manner. The report, written with the consulting firm KGM & Associates and ClimateWorks, calls this a “carbon loophole,” since countries rarely scrutinize the carbon footprint of the goods they import.

The new report, which analyzes global trade from 15,000 different sectors — from toys and office equipment to glass and aluminum — builds on previous academic research to provide one of the most detailed pictures yet of the global carbon trade.

Not surprisingly, China, which has become the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide, remains the world’s factory. About 13 percent of China’s emissions in 2015 came from making stuff for other countries. In India, another fast-growing emitter, the figure is 20 percent.

Since the financial crisis in 2008, however, the outsourcing of emissions from wealthy countries to developing countries has started to slow. More recently, much of the growth in carbon outsourcing is occurring between developing countries, according to a recent study in Nature Communications.

“Just as China’s starting to deal with its emissions, it’s been pushing some of its more carbon-intensive activities into countries like Cambodia, Vietnam and India,” said Steven J. Davis, a scientist at the University of California, Irvine and co-author of that study. 

“From a climate policy context,” he added, “it’s like a game of whack-a-mole.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Jonger]

I think we need to look at sequestering carbon underground. Just as one country can damage the atmosphere globally, one country can fix the atmosphere globally.

I see almost nothing serious being done in this regard right now.