14 DAY TRIAL // The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that, according to information at hand, countries such as China might not be entirely to blame for the fact that their yearly carbon emissions are through the roof.
On the contrary, it would appear that the world's richest countries also have a say in the matter, and might in fact be the chief culprit behind the enormous ecological footprint that many rising economies currently have.
The Guardian says that, in a recent report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change shows that, during the first 10 years of this century, the world's overall greenhouse gas emissions upped roughly twice as fast as they did throughout the previous 3 decades.
As was to be expected, this happened due to the fact that global coal consumption increased to a considerable extent.
What's interesting is that, although much of this coal was turned into energy in China and other countries that are just now experiencing an economic boom, the goods that it served to produce were not locally consumed.
On the contrary, a large amount of the goods produced in rising economies was eventually shipped to consumers in the United States and Europe. Otherwise put, rich countries are currently outsourcing their pollution.
“A growing share of CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion in developing countries is released in the production of goods and services exported, notably from upper-middle-income countries to high-income countries,” the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reportedly writes in its report.
“We need to understand the full life cycle of all the goods and services that we are purchasing and selling. The consumers that are importing those goods have some responsibility for those goods that are happening outside of our boundaries,” adds Cynthia Cummis with the World Resources Institute.
Just to put things into perspective, it must be said that, of the 14 gigatonnes of carbon emissions that rising economies are estimated to roll out on a yearly basis, roughly 2 gigatonnes result from producing goods intended for export.