Carbon omissions

With the latest round of international climate change negotiations at Cancun less than a week away, Policy Exchange has published research showing that the UK’s and EU’s performance in reducing carbon emissions is not quite what it seems.  

According to the official measure, used to determine performance against the Kyoto agreement, the UK’s emissions have fallen.  The UK is set to exceed its Kyoto target of 12.5 percent reduction from 1990 levels.  But, in our new report Carbon Omissions, Policy Exchange has estimated that total UK carbon consumption emissions in fact rose by 30 percent between 1990 and 2006.  

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Patrick O’Flynn

Reform is rattling the establishment

The reason is that we import and consume a lot more goods made in countries like China than we did in 1990, and the more imported goods we consume, the more carbon emissions there are in China.