Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Lecturer of Human Geography Dr. Laurie Parsons admits UK companies are outsourcing emissions abroad to avoid the UK’s strict carbon targets.
Carbon colonialism must be challenged if we are to make climate progress
Laurie Parsons, Royal Holloway University of London
December 21, 2021 1.20pm GMT
Assessment of the UN climate conference COP26There are many different successes, but none of them are completely positive. Achieve Paris Agreementthe goal of limiting global warming by 1.5 above pre-industrial levels is a goal described by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres as “life support, while post-conference reports suggest that the world is on track for “degree of harm“Of global warming.
Feedback in some quarters is calling for tough new goals, but as chief executive of the UK Climate Change Committee note, which could simply be “bridging the gap between ambition and delivery.”
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But these goals will never be able to adequately challenge the climate crisis without addressing the underlying.”carbon colonialism“As the foundation for the UK approach to climate change. Here, carbon is measured according to a two-tier system: strictly within the UK borders and less carefully outside of them.
This approach to the country’s carbon footprint doesn’t make much sense in the face of worldwide climate change. Around 22% Global carbon emissions are caused by the production of goods, like clothing and electronics, that are actually consumed in another country. The UK is a notable consumer – in fact, the third highest globally – of “imported emissions” like these. However, the climate targets set by the UK government are focused on reducing emissions from within the country.
Currently, UK emissions legislation applies only to locally manufactured products, while imported products are subject to voluntary standards – that is, the companies that make them do not have to accurately report their emissions. This encourages”outsourcing“Of emissions abroad. The dirtiest and most carbon-intensive industries, such as fast fashion and construction, are shipped to developing countries such as India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Cambodia.
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People living in well-governed rich countries rarely appreciate how corrupt and malleable some places are. One particularly corrupt Caribbean country I’ve visited, if you had a problem with your hotel bill, you gave the local police $20, and they put pressure on the owner. I didn’t do this, but I followed someone who did – I thought he was arrested, but he explained later.
From what friends have said, the countries where you can buy local police and government officials are much more numerous than the countries where the officials take laws and regulations seriously. And it’s not necessarily because the people involved want to be corrupt; In places where the lowest paid public employees, barely enough to cover their food, let alone other living expenses, corruption is a matter of survival.
So companies using millions of dollars have no problem getting whatever fake paperwork they want – and a massive delay tactic and if any international inspectors show up .
Dr. Laurie Parsons believe that stricter enforcement will solve the problem, but is such enforcement really possible? Global supply chains are plagued with problems far more serious than climate change, such as Chinese slave labor. Strong enforcement efforts to date have not had any serious impact on this offense.
So I think it’s fair to say that strict climate targets do nothing to reduce supply chain CO2 emissions, and no future enforcement action is likely to change this. . All climate goals do is give the corrupt a competitive edge and push manufacturing jobs out of countries that are actually trying to enforce the rules.
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