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Over a third of CO2 emissions 'outsourced' to developing nations | A new study by scientists at the Carnegie Institution,
US, has found that over a third of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions associated with consumption of goods and services in many developed countries are actually emitted
outside their borders. Some countries, such as Switzerland, "outsource" over half
of their carbon dioxide emissions, primarily to developing countries. The study
finds that, per person, about 2.5 tons of carbon dioxide are consumed in the US
but produced somewhere else. For Europeans, the figure can exceed four tons per
person. Most of these emissions are outsourced to developing countries, especially
China. "Instead of looking at carbon dioxide emissions only in terms of what is
released inside our borders, we also looked at the amount of carbon dioxide released
during the production of the things that we consume," said co-author Ken Caldeira,
a researcher in the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology. Caldeira
and lead author Steven Davis, also at Carnegie, used published trade data from
2004 to create a global model of the flow of products across 57 industry sectors
and 113 countries or regions. By allocating carbon emissions to particular products
and sources, the researchers were able to calculate the net emissions "imported"
or "exported" by specific countries. "Just like the electricity that you use in
your home probably causes CO2 emissions at a coal-burning power plant somewhere
else, we found that the products imported by the developed countries of western
Europe, Japan, and the United States cause substantial emissions in other countries,
especially China," said Davis. "On the flip side, nearly a quarter of the emissions
produced in China are ultimately exported," he added. The researchers found that
over a third of the carbon dioxide emissions linked to good and services consumed
in many European countries actually occurred elsewhere. In Switzerland and several
other small countries, outsourced emissions exceeded the amount of carbon dioxide
emitted within national borders. The United States is both a major importer and
a major exporter of emissions embodied in trade. The net result is that the US
outsources about 11 percent of total consumption-based emissions, primarily to
the developing world. According to Caldeira, "One implication of emissions outsourcing is that a lot of the consumer products that we think of as being relatively carbon-free may in fact be associated with significant carbon dioxide emissions." |
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