A new report suggests that the UK’s apparent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions is based on incomplete figures that mask a substantial increase in recent years.

According to the government’s official figures, the UK has reduced its greenhouse gas output by 15 per cent since 1990 and is on track to meet its target under the Kyoto Treaty of reducing its emissions by 12.5 per cent below 1990 levels by 2012. However, these figures don’t include emissions arising from aviation, shipping, overseas trade and tourism. When these are added, they show that the UK’s emissions have risen by 19 per cent since 1990.

The report, from a team of economists led by Dieter Helm at the University of Oxford, says that the discrepancy arises from differences in methodology. The official figures focus on emissions from productive activities within a country’s territory, rather than those arising from consumption. In the UK’s case, the move from manufacturing to service-based industries means that it now imports what it previously produced, in effect displacing emissions abroad.        


Paris Franz

February 2008