Defra published statistics regarding the UK’s carbon footprint to 2022 showing greenhouse gas emissions associated with UK consumption earlier this year. They show that emissions relating to imports rose 80% from 1996 to a peak in 2007 and were 56% higher in 2022 compared to 1996. Furthermore, in 2022 emissions relating to the consumption of goods and services produced in the UK were 48% lower than in 1996.
In case of energy intensive industries, the Defra statistics show a trend of declining industrial emissions but a trend of increasing consumption emissions from products and services imported from abroad.
In its position paper, the EIUG stresses the advice from the Climate Change Committee (CCC) that it is important to also consider emissions associated with UK imports to ensure that territorial emissions reductions are not just being offset by higher emissions in other countries from producing UK imports. This is carbon leakage. It therefore recommends that the Government takes the following measures:
- Implement the CCC’s recommendation to set a non-legally binding benchmark against which to track imported emissions in the short term;
- Amend the Climate Change Act to include legally binding targets to reduce UK consumption emissions in the medium term;
- Implement an effective Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism for sectors most at risk of carbon leakage over time.