UK emissions are down seven per cent - but DECC is missing something big
- 29 Mar 2012, 18:00
- Ros Donald
We really hate to rain on the UK Department for Energy and
Climate Change (DECC)'s parade. It published figures today showing
that the UK's
carbon emissions fell by seven per cent last year. But the
statistics don't include the amount of CO2 embedded in imports -
an amount which risen sharply as the UK's manufacturing base
has shrunk.
The provisional figures show the UK's net CO2 emissions amounted
to 456.3 million tonnes in 2011. In 2010, they were 495.8
million tonnes.
The UK's emissions of other greenhouse gases went down as well -
from 92.0 million tonnes to 90.4 million tonnes. Meanwhile, the
UK's Kyoto greenhouse gas basket - a different measure to the
one DECC headlines on - is down from 590.5 million tonnes of
greenhouse gas emissions to 549.3 million tonnes.
The problem with this measurement, however, is that, mitigation
efforts aside, UK emissions from industry have gone down in large
part because the country no longer has the manufacturing capacity
it once had.
Under the Kyoto Protocol, Europe's emissions reductions targets
and the UK's Climate Change Act, the UK is expected to make
greenhouse gas cuts based on its domestic emissions. Like other
developed countries with a smaller manufacturing base, the UK can
report shrinking carbon emissions by this measure. But when
adjusted for the impact of international trade, DECC's announcement
looks less impressive.
Last month, the
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)
issued a report that illustrates this point. It show that once the
'embedded' emissions from the increased number of imports we now
buy are included, our carbon footprint nearly doubles.
Unfortunately it's not possible to do a like-for-like comparison
because Defra's report only calculates the UK's carbon footprint
including consumption up until 2009. But the trend looks pretty
clear - while the UK's carbon emissions are indeed going down, they
are much higher once you take into account greenhouse gases from
the products we consume which are produced outside the UK.
We blogged the
Defra report when it came out, though it didn't get much
publicity from the department. One commentator remarked at the time
that it "seems like a cop-out on the part of the government" that
the work is being done internally but not publicised or used to
drive policy.
It's not altogether surprising, however, given that the trend
presented by the consumption-based figures is far less
optimistic.