This piece was originally published on Left Foot Forward. The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) is the UK government’s independent advisor on greenhouse gas emissions. Yet at present it is being prevented from investigating the ongoing rise in UK emissions. As Left Foot Forward reported earlier this year, the UK’s carbon emissions continue to rise when viewed from aRead more

In an interview in today”s Guardian, DECC Minister Greg Barker has finally come clean about the need to tackle outsourced emissions: “The big shift in thinking on climate change policy is a recognition that we need to rebalance our economy. But decarbonisation must not mean de-industrialisation,” he said. “On the contrary, we actually need toRead more

PIRC has submitted written evidence to the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC)’s inquiry into carbon budgets. We suggest to the EAC that existing carbon budgets fail to account for outsourced emissions, and that this demands immediate attention by the Government. You can read our submission online here or download a PDF copy here.

A version of this piece, by Alex Randall and Guy Shrubsole, first appeared on Liberal Conspiracy. The news that global emissions continue to skyrocket is a solemn reminder that climate change, though absent from the headlines of late, remains the world’s most intractable and urgent problem. One might think, given the government’s recent announcement of targets to cut Britain’sRead more

In yesterday’s Guardian, Sir David King, former Government Chief Scientist, called on rich nations to tackle the emissions they outsourced overseas: Sir David King, director of the Smith School of Enterprise at the University of Oxford and former chief scientific advisor to the UK government, said the emissions rise showed how developed countries had exported their greenhouseRead more

George Monbiot’s Guardian column today focuses on the scandal of the UK’s outsourced emissions, with a plug for our ongoing investigation.

The Guardian’s Duncan Clark has today penned a piece on the Carbon Trust’s new data showing how UK carbon emissions will continue to rise when imports are factored in. Asked for our response, we told him: “Until government starts accounting for outsourced emissions officially, it’s continuing to tell a convenient lie about the true scale ofRead more

This piece was originally published on Left Food Forward. The Carbon Trust has today released new data revealing how the UK’s total carbon emissions are likely to rise into the 2020s, despite legally-binding targets to cut domestic emissions by a third. The figures, shown in the graph below and available for download here, have been calculated by includingRead more

There’s been a flurry of media interest in outsourced emissions in recent weeks, here’s a quick round-up: The Guardian’s DataBlog have done some number-crunching on how international trade changes the picture of who’s responsible for emissions. They’ve also added to their Climate Change FAQ with an entry, ‘What are outsourced emissions?’ It’s not just theRead more

This piece was originally published on the 10:10 blog. Factoid of the day: China builds about 8 coal power stations a month. Lesser known fact: roughly 2-3 of these power stations are built to make stuff for us in the rest of the world to consume. That’s right: between a quarter and a third of China’s emissions are ultimately the responsibilityRead more

A striking new study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Scientists finds that rich countries’ emissions cuts under the Kyoto Protocol have been far outweighed by the growth in outsourced emissions driven by rising consumption. Duncan Clark at the Guardian reports.

The BBC’s Roger Harrabin has done a piece today on the UK’s outsourced emissions, including extracts from an interview with PIRC’s Guy Shrubsole.