Manufacturing + Environment

The path / impact of mining materials to build elementary components

Embodied Emissions + Manufacturing Outsourcing

From Frank Ackerman Editorial Your iPhone Causes China's Pollution
Here’s the problem: if a Chinese steel mill sells steel to Toyota in Japan, which uses it to make cars sold to Americans, which country is responsible for the steel mill’s emissions? America seems like the logical answer; the Chinese emissions happened in order to make something that was bought and used in the United States. Those emissions, however, belong to China in all standard statistics, and in most discussion of climate targets and responsibilities for emission reduction.

The standard approach, counting emissions based on where they are produced, is much easier to implement. National statistics naturally count factories, vehicles, and other emission sources that occur within a country’s borders. The more logical approach, attributing emissions from production to the country where the final product is consumed, requires detailed modeling of international trade flows.

Researchers have attempted to allocate emissions on a consumption basis in recent years. A leading figure in this new field of study is Glen Peters, at Norway’s Center for International Climate and Environmental Research-Oslo (CICERO). Peters and several coauthors have estimated that emissions from the production of exports - often referred to as emissions “embodied” in exports - have risen from 20 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions in 1990 to 26 percent in 2008. When they recalculated emissions on a consumption basis, emissions in America, Europe, and other developed countries continued to rise throughout this period, and the rich world missed its Kyoto targets by a wide margin.