Trade and climate policies must be linked post-2012

From: SciDev.Net - October 02, 2008

Read Full Article: http://www.scidev.net/en/opinions/trade-and-climate-policies-must-be-linked-post-201.html

Emissions from China's export industry are everyone's responsibility — future trade and climate policy must be linked, says Glen Peters.

China is now the world's biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, decades earlier than many predicted. Chinese emissions are often viewed as a Chinese production problem, but the role of spiraling consumption in rich nations should not be underestimated. One third of China's territorial emissions come from producing exports.

A closer look at China's emissions from 2002–2005 shows that half their growth was due to export production. A further third of the growth came from capital investments, with a significant share of this in export industries. Indeed, only 15 per cent of the emissions growth from 2002–2005 was due to household and government consumption.

By the same argument, emissions in some developed countries have not stabilised if imports are included. In the UK, for example, emissions associated with consumption have increased 18 per cent since 1992 — even though emissions reported to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have declined.