Consumption-based GHG emission accounting: a UK case study

By J. Barrett, G. P. Peters, T. Wiedmann, K. Scott, Manfred Lenzen, K. Roelich, Corinne Le Quéré. 2013

343 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Global GHG emissions continue to rise, with nearly a quarter of it due to trade that is not currently captured within global climate policy. In the context of current trade patterns and limited global cooperation on climate change, the feasibility of consumption-based emissions accounting to contribute to a more comprehensive (national) policy framework in the UK is investigated. Consumption-based emissions results for the UK from a range of models are presented, their technical robustness is assessed, and their potential application in national climate policy is examined using examples of policies designed to reduce carbon leakage and to address high levels of consumption. It is shown that there is a need to include consumption-based emissions as a complementary indicator to the current approach of measuring territorial emissions. Methods are shown to be robust enough to measure progress on climate change and develop and inform mitigation policy. Finally, some suggestions are made for future policy-oriented research in the area of consumption-based accounting that will facilitate its application to policy. Policy relevance Emissions embodied in trade are rapidly increasing and there is thus a growing gap between production emissions and the emissions associated with consumption. This is a growing concern due to the absence of a global cap and significant variation in country-level mitigation ambitions. Robust measurements of consumption-based emissions are possible and provide new insights into policy options. This includes trade-related policy (e.g. border carbon adjustments) and domestic policies (e.g. resource efficiency strategies). As climate policy targets deepen, there is a need for a broad range of policy options in addition to production and technological solutions. Consumption-based emissions are complementary to production-based emissions inventories, which are still the most accurate estimate for aggregated emissions at the global level. However, without consumption-based approaches, territorial emissions alone will not provide a complete picture of progress in regional and national emissions reduction.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Environmental Engineering, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a02b1c32fdd1b6b99ce62b9f6c9761413384d4ed

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Economics and Econometrics

In Environmental Engineering

In Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

Citations in the corpus

Measuring the progress and impacts of decarbonising British electricity (2017, background): “This approach is now widely used to better understand country-level emissions by accounting for imported goods (Barrett et al., 2013).”
Assessment of China's virtual air pollution transport embodied in trade by using a consumption-based emission inventory (2014, background): “However, partitioning responsibility between producers and consumers is more complicated, because producers accrue economic benefit when emitting pollutants (Barrett et al., 2013).”
The Global MRIO Lab – charting the world economy (2017, background): “, 2009; Wiedmann and Barrett, 2013; Wiedmann, 2016), and especially for international negotiations about responsibility for carbon emissions reductions (Peters and Hertwich, 2008; Barrett et al., 2013).”
Carbon emissions of cities from a consumption-based perspective (2019, background): “Italy [33], Japan [34], Spain [35], Turkey [36], and the UK [37].”
Consumption-based emission accounting for Chinese cities (2016, background): “[30] both calculated the UK’s consumption-based greenhouse gas emissions and found that consumption-based carbon emissions were rapidly increasing and that there was a widening gap between production- and consumption-based emissions.”
International trade undermines national emission reduction targets: New evidence from air pollution (2014, background): “A recent UK study recommended that consumption-based inventories be constructed as a complement to current territorial emissions inventories (Barrett et al., 2013).”