Climate Crisis: How The US And EU Outsourced Emissions Along With Manufacturing

Over the last twenty years, Europe (-16%) and the US (-10%) have managed to reduce their CO2 emissions substantially, whilst the rest of the world has been going in the opposite direction - and by significant amounts. Chinese emissions are up by a factor of four since the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992. India has seen emissions grow fivefold in that time. In fact, since that summit adopted the UNFCCC treaty on Climate Change, global CO2 emissions have doubled, almost exactly the same rate at which they grew in the preceding period.

Neither the Earth Summit nor the Kyoto protocol were able to reduce global carbon emissions. There's little evidence that the Paris Agreement has proved to be any more impactful.

Emissions have been rising in India and China for two reasons. Firstly, US and EU countries have completed an almost wholesale export of manufacturing, notably to countries where emissions standards have historically been limited or completely non-existent. 

The cheaper cost of goods has brought with it a higher price in climate change by-products. 

Secondly, the increase in wealth in these developing economies has fuelled demand for consumer products, driving up the rate of manufacturing and pushing emissions even higher.

The net effect is that the reduction in emissions from the US and EU has been more than matched by the increased emissions in the new manufacturing hubs around the world. 

Manufacturing emissions can only be controlled in any meaningful way by slashing demand for new products. Without that driver the supply chain just isn't going to turn off the taps. The global economic structure is dependent upon mass manufacturing and the service industry that it drives, any talk of degrowth or slowdowns is automatically dismissed because it fits neither government not business strategy. .

Which means that the only option for controlling manufacturing emissions comes from a massive reduction in consumer spending. A slump in demand has to met with a slow down of supply. Globally we are rushing towards, if not past, the point of no-return. If a change in consumer behaviour doesn't happen, well, then nobody has their hands on the brake.