China demands West takes responsibility for imports' carbon footprint

One of China's top climate change negotiators has this week proposed that importers of Chinese made goods should take financial responsibility for the resulting carbon emissions under any new international climate change deal.

Speaking at a meeting of large polluters in Washington intended to deliver progress ahead of international talks in Copenhagen later this year, Li Gao said China should not pay for emissions arising from the manufacture of goods that are exported for use in rich nations.

Speaking to the BBC, Li said any successor to the Kyoto Accord agreed in Copenhagen should recognise that rich countries are indirectly responsible for a large chunk of China's carbon emissions.

"We produce products and these products are consumed by other countries, especially the developed countries," he said. "This share of emissions should be taken by the consumers but not the producers."

According to a recent study by Oslo's Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research, China may now be the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide, but around a third of its emissions are the result of manufacturing goods for export.

Environmental groups have repeatedly called on the West to take greater responsibility for emissions that result from global supply chains, urging firms to work with suppliers in countries such as China and India to reduce their carbon emissions.

However, negotiators from the EU and US are highly sceptical that a deal can be reached in Copenhagen that would see rich nations take financial responsibility for emissions released outside of their national boundaries.

EU climate negotiator Artur Runge-Metzger told the BBC that nations importing goods from China would only agree to take responsibility for their carbon emissions if they were also given "jurisdiction and legislative powers in order to control and limit those [emissions]" – something he predicted China would be unwilling to hand over.

In a further indication of the distance that remains between developed nations and large emerging economies such as India and China, Li warned that any attempt to place a carbon tariff on goods imported from countries that do not sign up to binding emission targets would be a "disaster".

Negotiators have been debating how to ensure firms operating in territories with increasingly stringent carbon regulations remain competitive with international rivals operating under more lax regulatory environments.

One proposal is to impose tariffs on goods imported from countries that fail to sign up to any Copenhagen deal.

Last week, Ohio senator Sherrod Brown said that he had discussed the possible inclusion of such "border equalisation" measures in Barack Obama's planned climate change bill with Democrat leaders.

Speaking at an event hosted by the Worldwatch Institute, he said that measures were required to ensure US firms are not put at a disadvantage as a result of a cap-and-trade scheme that puts a price on carbon.

"If a US company - say a steel mill in Ohio - if their cost goes up dramatically for cutting carbon, it's one more reason to think they're not going to be competitive," he said. "We need some guarantee that my state will not be overwhelmed by the costs [of a climate change bill]."