West responsible for a third of China's carbon emissions

A new study shows that half the recent increase in China's carbon emissions is a direct result of its manufacturing of goods for export to other countries. As a result of the findings, pressure on western firms to address the carbon emissions of their Chinese supply chains looks set to step up another notch.

According to Guardian reports, the new study from Oslo's Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research is to be published in scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters and will show that overall a third of China's carbon emissions are the results of exports.

The report found that about nine per cent of China's emissions are the result of manufacturing goods for export to the US, while six per cent arise from goods that are sent to Europe.

Dieter Helm, professor of economics at Oxford University, told The Guardian that the study provided further evidence that the West had " simply outsourced our production" of carbon emissions.

He added that international attempts to curb emissions needed to focus more on where goods are consumed, rather than where they are produced. He also argued that measures such as a border tax on carbon transfer could be used to ensure net importers are offered incentives to cut emissions from products manufactured overseas.

The government maintains that emissions should be recorded within national boundaries, arguing that a system that took account of imported and exported goods would be far too complicated to administer.

However, the research further strengthens China's hand during this year's negotiations to agree a successor to the Kyoto Accord, highlighting the extent to which developed economies are responsible for much of its recent growth in emissions.

It is also the latest in a series of studies to suggest the West is directly responsible for a large proportion of China's emissions.

Research last year from Carnegie Mellon University similarly found that a third of China's emissions were the result of exports, while two separate studies from the Stockholm Environment Institute found that when emissions from aviation, shipping and imported goods are taken into account the UK's carbon emissions are almost 50 per cent higher than official figures for domestic emissions.