No virtue in rich nations outsourcing their emissions
In political debates about climate change, governments in Europe have portrayed themselves as virtuous for their achievements and plans in cutting emissions. The <https://www.edfeurope.org/news/2020/11/12/european-council-sets-trailblazin g-target-cut-emissions-least-55> European Union has committed to reducing emissions 55% below 1990 by 2030. This has helped to convince the public that emission reduction remains the main game for preventing dangerous warming, that carbon dioxide removal can be deferred, and that solar radiation management should be banned as a moral hazard. However, as the article below by former Australian Senator Ron Boswell explains, achievements in emission reduction are largely fraudulent. Emissions from industrial processes in European industry fell by 40 per cent between 1990 and 2018. But that sits uncomfortably alongside global results, which, far from any cuts, have seen industrial emissions increase by 67%. How could this be? The reason is the emission accounting system is rigged so that when emissions are offshored, especially to China, they are counted against the country of manufacture rather than the country of benefit. The scam of emissions reduction is something worse and more insidious than the deceptions imagined by climate deniers. The real problem is that decarbonisation is unable to prevent the looming planetary security catastrophe of global warming, which can only be stopped by geoengineering, and the UN processes have signally failed to bring this situation to world attention. Emission reduction cannot reduce extreme weather or biodiversity collapse in this decade. Unfortunately, cutting new emissions only slows the speed at which GHGs increase, and is marginal to the overall task of stabilising the climate, which is mainly a geoengineering problem. The tragedy is that the lie of primary reliance on emission cuts could dominate proceedings at COP26 in Glasgow. This situation is morally appalling, a shocking triumph of spin over substance. This big lie has distorted the political debate to obscure the urgent need for major planetary cooling intervention. This month the UNFCCC explained how far short the world is of its Paris ratchet goals in this <https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/cma2021_08_adv_1.pdf> report and <https://unfccc.int/news/full-ndc-synthesis-report-some-progress-but-still-a -big-concern> press release. To display the impudence and duplicity of the official climate system, the press release asserts in its headline sentence that "there is a clear trend that greenhouse gas emissions are being reduced over time." That is untrue. It is immediately contradicted by the "worrying findings" that "available NDCs. imply a sizable increase in global GHG emissions in 2030 compared to 2010, of about 16%." Even worse, the main report states that by 2030 emissions are projected to be 59.3 per cent higher than in 1990. In the parallel universe inhabited by Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of UN Climate Change, "the synthesis shows that countries are making progress towards the Paris Agreement's temperature goals. This means that the in-built mechanism set up by the Paris Agreement to allow for a gradual increase of ambition is working". No, the Paris mechanism is not working. If COP26 agreed to change the rules so that emissions are counted against the country that uses the product instead of the country that produces it, we would suddenly have a far more accurate picture of climate responsibility. That might even prompt greater recognition of the urgency of climate engineering solutions. Robert Tulip No virtue in rich nations outsourcing their emissions <https://www.theaustralian.com.au/author/Ron+Boswell> RON BOSWELL <https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/no-virtue-in-rich-nations-outso urcing-their-emissions/news-story/de8981f7bb2669b9327ba26cc5634091> https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/no-virtue-in-rich-nations-outsou rcing-their-emissions/news-story/de8981f7bb2669b9327ba26cc5634091 SEPTEMBER 24, 2021 One of the great mysteries of the global economy is how so many countries are boldly pledging to hit net-zero emissions by 2050, yet global emissions keep rising. Despite a temporary dip last year because of the pandemic-induced slowdown, global greenhouse gas emissions are growing again and are expected to reach 55 billion tonnes by 2022-23. That's up from 51 billion tonnes in 2019. But if more than 100 nations have committed to net zero by 2050, why are emissions still going up? It's an accounting trick. It's called outsourcing. It works like this. At least a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions are generated in the production of goods traded across borders. This includes steel, aluminium, cement, cars, heavy machinery and farm exports such as beef and sheep meat. And this trade is changing the distribution of global emissions. In recent decades the richest nations have lowered their emissions footprints by outsourcing the production of manufactured goods, mostly to China and other developing countries. And this shift is making some countries look green for no reason other than their companies have relocated their production to other countries. According to UN data, China's share of global manufacturing output climbed from 8.7 per cent in 2004 to 28.4 per cent in 2018. Across the same period, the manufacturing contribution to Britain's gross domestic product more than halved from 25 per cent to about 11 per cent. Manufacturing in the US also has hollowed out, while in the past decade the EU has become a net importer of emissions-intensive steel. Does this mean the British, US and EU economies have stopped using emissions-intensive goods? Not at all. They're still using steel, aluminium and cement. They are still buying cars and appliances and consuming beef and other food. It's just that they are importing more instead. And under global climate rules the emissions generated producing those goods are counted against the nation that produces them, not the country that consumes them. According to a recent Goldman Sachs report, at least 20 per cent of China's greenhouse gas emissions are generated in the production of goods for export. So while emissions from industrial processes in European industry fell by 40 per cent between 1990 and 2018, overall global emissions in this sector increased by 67 per cent. So from an emissions perspective Europe looks good and China and other industrial producers look bad. The global rules also work against Australia, where as much as one-third of our emissions is generated in the production of goods for export. About 70 per cent of Australia's agricultural produce is consumed abroad. But all of the 75 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions associated with farm production in Australia are counted against our inventory. The cynical thing is that the countries that have benefited most from the outsourcing of global emissions are the ones pointing the finger at other countries for their emissions performance, including the ones that supply them with the emissions-intensive goods and services. Take Britain. It's the global boaster-in-chief about its emissions performance, pointing to a reduction of more than 30 per cent since 1990. That's misleading. But don't take my word for it. Nearly a decade ago, in 2012, the British House of Commons Committee on Climate Change belled the cat on the outsourcing trick. It warned that Britain's overall carbon footprint had increased by 12 per cent since 1990. The committee said the "rate at which the UK's consumption-based emissions have increased have far offset any emissions savings from a decrease in territorial emissions. This means that the UK is contributing to a net increase in global emissions." This trend has continued. As The New York Times noted in September 2018, "If you included all of the emissions produced in the course of making things like the imported steel used in London's skyscrapers and cars, then Britain's total carbon footprint has actually increased slightly over that time." In a similar vein, The Guardian warned in 2019: "Britain has contributed to the global climate emergency by outsourcing its carbon emissions to developing nations." Britain is not the only one. A 2018 report found the US is the largest importer of "embodied carbon". In Europe, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Spain are significant net importers. Remember, this is the mob criticising Australia for not committing to net-zero emissions by 2050. Having shifted their emissions to the developing world, these countries are demanding those economies give themselves an economic uppercut by decarbonising their energy and production inputs. And they are threatening them with carbon tariffs if they don't. The simple fact is that the global economy is a division of labour. Some countries' emissions are higher per capita because they provide essential goods to others that can't produce those goods. It's sophistry for the US, Britain and the EU to parade as paragons of virtue when they are responsible for the demand for the goods whose production is increasing global emissions. And global climate meetings, such as the one in November in Glasgow, will be exercises in deception and completely meaningless unless they address the outsourcing con trick. Ron Boswell is a former Nationals leader in the Senate. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/geoengineering/00d801d7b211%248c0f7390%24a42e5ab0%24%40yahoo.com.au.
