The Carbon Trust, who gave evidence to the Select Committee,
responds to the Energy and Climate Change Committee's new report on
Consumption-Based Emissions Reporting.
Simon Retallack, Strategy Manager at the Carbon Trust, said:
'This is an important report as it throws the carbon debate on
its head. It fundamentally redefines what the actual carbon
footprint of the UK is. The Carbon Trust has been arguing for
some time now that the established production based way of
measuring our carbon emissions does not take account of the fact
that a significant proportion of our emissions occur overseas,
especially in countries like China, through the manufacture of
products that we import.
The Committee has rightly concluded that our actual carbon
emissions are therefore significantly higher when measured by total
consumption of carbon than by just measuring carbon production in
the UK. This new way of looking at carbon, through the lens
of overall consumption, wherever it originates from, should act as
an eye opener for policy makers, companies and for us all as
individuals working to reduce our carbon emissions."
Further information
Further information from the House of Commons Energy and Climate
Change Committee:
Related research
Our research into International Carbon
Flows revealed the magnitude and impact of the movement of
embodied carbon around the world, tracking the flow of
emissions from the region of production to the region of
consumption.