Developed countries outsource hundreds of megatons of carbon emissions
Last Updated: Monday, March 8, 2010 | 3:03 PM ET
CBC News Developed countries are “outsourcing” more than a third of their carbon emissions associated with products and services to other countries, researchers say. A study of trade data found that some countries in Western Europe have more than half of their total carbon dioxide emissions occurring elsewhere, especially in developing countries such as China. Researchers at the Carnegie Institution used trade data from 2004 to create a model of the global flow of products in 113 countries and regions. They then associated those products with carbon emissions to determine which countries are net “importers” of emissions and which are net “exporters.” “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 the study’s lead author Steven Davis of Carnegie, in a statement. The study, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that, per person, products consumed in Europe caused almost four tonnes of carbon emissions in other parts of the world. In the U.S., the figure was smaller, about 2.2 tonnes per person, although the U.S. is both a major importer and exporter of carbon emissions. The U.S. “outsources” about 11 per cent of its total emissions associated with consumption of products. …
