China found to outsource emissions to poorer regions

A new study has found that China has started to outsource carbon dioxide emissions within its borders. The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS), details the consumption-based carbon dioxide emissions throughout China according to where they are consumed rather than focusing entirely on where the emissions are created.

This move to outsource China's carbon dioxide emissions within its borders could jeopardise the country's climate targets. The richer coastal areas are subject to much stricter climate objectives and in order for these areas to stay in line with these, industry is being driven inland. Although this move may improve the air pollution of the coastal regions, it risks failing to reduce emissions as a whole throughout the country.

Laixiang Sun, of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and the University of Maryland, said: "China has set emissions targets which are more stringent in affluent coastal provinces than in less-developed interior provinces. This may reduce emissions in one region, but in China as a whole, you find CO2 emissions continue to increase, because the polluting factories move into the less developed regions."

China is currently the largest source of carbon dioxide emissions in the world. As of 2007 the country has produced around 7.2 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide every year, increasing to around 10 gigatonnes in 2011. The country has recently announced measures to reduce the air pollution from its huge manufacturing industry. However, Mr Sun has suggested that these tougher reforms on emissions could result in provinces using poorer regions for manufacturing purposes and so increasing the emissions of these regions. This could ultimately cause problems that could not be adequately dealt with by the less-affluent areas of the country.    

Around 50 per cent of emissions related to products used in richer cities - such as Shanghai and Beijing - and provinces - like Guangdong - were being outsourced to poorer areas, according to the report. Some of the richer coastal areas were found to be outsourcing around 80 per cent of the consumption related carbon dioxide emissions to more central regions throughout China.

The study said: "Without policy attention to this sort of interprovincial carbon leakage, the less developed provinces will struggle to meet their emissions intensity targets, whereas the more developed provinces might achieve their own targets by further outsourcing."