WIREDGOV

The Government should be straightforward  about the impact that UK consumption is having on the world's climate, according to a report from the Energy and Climate Change Committee.

The MPs warn that: 

Tim Yeo MP, Chair of the Energy and Climate Change Committee, said:

"Successive governments have claimed to be cutting climate-changing emissions, but in fact a lot of pollution has simply been outsourced overseas.

The Department for Energy and Climate Change likes to argue that the UK is only responsible for 2% of the world's CO₂ emissions, but the Government’s own research shows this not to be the case.

We get through more consumer goods than ever before in the UK and this is pushing up emissions in manufacturing countries like China."

The Department for Energy and Climate Change's (DECC) official CO₂ figures - that count territorial emissions from power stations and transport, etc, within UK borders - show nearly  20% reduction between 1990–2009. But research commissioned by the Department for the Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) reveals that CO₂ emissions were 20% higher in 2009 if consumption based emissions -  from imported goods - are included.

The fall in territorial emissions was not mainly the  consequence of the Government's climate policy, according to the report. Rather it was the result of the shift in manufacturing industries away from the UK and the switch from coal to gas-fired electricity generation that began in the early 1990s. Since 1990 carbon dioxide emissions from imports have almost doubled (from 166 million tonnes (Mt) CO₂ to 331 Mt CO₂ in 2009).

If the UK wishes to encourage emissions reductions in countries that manufacture and export goods to the UK, the MPs say the Government should recognise the growth in the UK's consumption-based emissions.  Acknowledging  that UK consumption is driving up territorial emissions in other countries could increase the UK's leverage over those emissions and help to secure a binding global agreement on carbon cuts.

Tim Yeo MP added:

"The UK can scarcely lecture countries like China for failing to sign up to binding emissions cuts when much of their pollution is produced making products for us and other high-consumption economies.

We are not saying that consumption emissions should form the basis of a new global climate treaty, but a more honest approach about our contribution to rising CO₂ levels could help to break the stalemate."

The report concludes that the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) should no longer rely exclusively on territorial emissions as its primary policy driver. There is sufficiently robust data available to develop new policy options and identify carbon-intensive behaviours that are overlooked by concentrating on territorial emissions alone. Ministers should explore the options for incorporating consumption-based emissions data in to the policy making process and setting emissions targets on a consumption-basis at the national level.

Tim Yeo MP said:

"Without a complete picture of the UK’s impact on the global climate, DECC runs the risk of designing energy and climate change policies that produce perverse unintended consequences.

The Government should commission the Committee on Climate Change to examine how the UK could incorporate consumption emissions accounting into our climate change policy.

Better information on the emissions embedded in products could also  encourage individuals and businesses to reduce their own carbon footprint."

DECC has claimed that it would be too difficult to count consumption - based emissions. However, the MPs argue that the Government should not use the uncertainties inherent to consumption-based emissions data as an excuse for inaction. The MPs point out that several local authorities are already using consumption data to inform policy making and researchers for DEFRA have calculated the UK's consumption impact with only small margin of uncertainty. The independent Committee on Climate Change - set up to advise the Government on its carbon budgets - has told the MPs that it would welcome the opportunity to explore the implications that consumption-based emissions accounting might have for the UK's carbon budgets, and that it could undertake such work after it publishes its fourth progress report on the carbon budget in June 2012.