In the same issue of Population and Environment as the previous post, another article, by Chenyang Xiao and Dayong Hong— Gender differences in environmental behaviors in China—shows some interesting cultural differences compared to the study of the American public:

China represents the third largest economy and the highest level of
national carbon dioxide emissions when compared to other nations across the globe.
Yet, little social science research has focused on the environmentally oriented
behaviors of Chinese nationals, key to understanding levels of environmental
impact. This study examines, in China, gender differences in environmentally
oriented behaviors, environmental knowledge, and general environmental concern.
Making use of path analyses, we identify a pattern of gender differences similar to
common findings in the West: women demonstrated greater participation in environmental behaviors inside of the home (e.g., recycling), while outside of the home (e.g., environmental organization donations) no gendered patterns were exhibited.  However, Chinese women expressed lower levels of concern than men—a finding opposite of most Western studies. Also distinct from other settings, in China, higher levels of knowledge regarding environmental issues did, indeed, translate into proenvironmental behaviors—thereby not exhibiting the knowledge-behavior gap
demonstrated elsewhere.

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Photo credit: tfpang

It’s been easy for citizens of the developed, industrialized world to criticize China and India over their rapidly growing greenhouse gas emissions.  This was one of the major reasons why the Kyoto Protocol was never ratified in the United States.

As many have  pointed out, however, there are several flaws with this argument:

• The per-capita carbon emissions in China and India remain much lower (1/4 and 1/16, respectively) compared to the U.S..
• Perhaps more importantly, some of the carbon emission in these countries is caused by the production of export goods to fuel consumer demand in wealthy nations.  Thus, we are responsible for “shadow carbon emissions” that get attributed to developing nations.

Until today, there haven’t been very good estimates of these kinds of shadow emissions.

In the Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Steven Davies and Ken Caldeira examine how much CO₂ is embodied in the import and export of goods.¹

Their results are interesting (excerpts below—If you can get a copy of the article, check out figures 1 and 2; they are terrific visuals for this information.  Alas, copyrights don’t allow me to post them):

• Approximately 6.2 gigatonnes (Gt) of CO₂, 23% of all CO₂ emissions from fossil-fuel burning, were emitted during the production of goods that were ultimately consumed in a different country.
• Emissions imported to the United States exceed those of any other country or region, primarily embodied in machinery (91 Mt), electronics (77 Mt), motor vehicles and parts (75 Mt), chemical, rubber, and plastic products (52 Mt), unclassified manufactured products (52 Mt), wearing apparel (42 Mt), and intermediate goods (654 Mt).
• These imports are offset by considerable US exports of transport services (49 Mt CO₂), machinery (42 Mt), electronics (26 Mt), chemical, rubber, and plastics products (25 Mt), motor vehicles (22 Mt), and intermediate goods (263 Mt).
• [G]oods imported to Western Europe and Japan embody much more CO2 per US$ than do their exports, reflecting the import of energy-intensive products from elsewhere.
• The carbon intensity of imports to China, Russia, India, and the Middle East is consistently far less than that of their exports.
• China is by far the largest net exporter of emissions, followed by Russia, the Middle East, South Africa, Ukraine, and India and, to a lesser extent, Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, and areas of South America.
• The primary net importers of emissions are the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Italy. Although the overall mass of emissions is much less, the other countries of Western Europe are all net importers, as are New Zealand, Mexico, Singapore, and many areas of Africa and South America. Similarly, Canada, Australia, Indonesia, the Czech Republic, and Egypt are among the countries whose net exports of emissions are small.
• On a per-capita basis, net imports of emissions to the United States, Japan, and countries in Western Europe are disproportionately large, with each individual consumer associated with 2.4–10.3 tons of CO₂ emitted elsewhere.

Their conclusion:

Consumption-based accounting reveals that substantial CO₂ emissions are traded internationally and therefore not included in traditional production-based national emissions inventories. The net effect of trade is the export of emissions from China and other emerging markets to consumers in the United States, Japan, and Western Europe. In the large economies of Western Europe, net imported emissions are 20–50% of consumption emissions; the net imported emissions fall to 17.8% and 10.8% in Japan and the United States, respectively. In contrast, net exports represent 22.5% of emissions produced in China. Thus, to the extent that constraints on emissions in developing countries are the major impediment to effective international climate policy, allocating responsibility for some portion of these emissions to final consumers elsewhere may represent an opportunity for compromise.

¹Steven J. Davis and Ken Caldeira (2010). Consumption-based accounting of CO2 emissions PNAS : 10.1073/pnas.0906974107

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Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/deks/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

(1) Climate of Compromise

• News stories are already talking about the ‘failure’ of Copenhagen and squandered opportunities. But viewed from the perspective of just a few years ago, the Copenhagen summit could already be considered a partial success. In a short span, many nations have pledged to cut their emissions of greenhouse gases by considerable amounts, well beyond any commitments they had made before, such as through the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.
• Nevertheless, such vows fall short of what is needed to protect against the dangers of global warming. Nations need to reduce global emissions far more in the longer term, and the endgame gets much tougher if leaders delay making those reductions.
• The negotiating impasse can be breached only by concessions on both sides. Developed nations, particularly the United States, must agree to substantial reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions, both in the next decade and in the long term. And developing nations must commit to controlling their greenhouse-gas pollution in some fashion.
• In the end, successful international negotiations share some important characteristics with scientific research. Both are iterative processes, in which results from one step help to determine the path forward. They require time and perseverance. And they rarely travel in a straight line. Countries should endeavour to build on the positive actions of the past year, both before and after the Copenhagen summit.

(2) Time running out for climate talks

• Some argue for building a consensus around areas of agreement and holding off on contentious issues involving money or specific commitments to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. Others focus on the architecture of a treaty and a broad, if symbolic, agreement among global leaders.  Some have suggested simply ‘stopping the clock’ on negotiations for a few months. Such proposals are intended to build political confidence and maintain momentum while allowing the United States more time to work out its domestic policy. Although the House
  of Representatives has passed climate legislation that would curb emissions to 17% below 2005 levels by 2020 and to 83% below by 2050, Senate Democrats are running out of time to pass a companion bill before Copenhagen. With the United States in limbo, the Europeans
  are necessarily leading the talks for the developed world.
• India’s environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, says the negotiations are unlikely to go anywhere unless wealthy nations embrace more ambitious emissions reductions and promise more money to help developing countries cope with climate change.
• China, the world’s largest emitter, is moving forwards with aggressive energy-efficiency targets and renewable-energy mandates — but has yet to pledge binding commitments or agree a date to level off its explosive emissions growth.

(3) India pushes for common responsibility

• India expects a strong agreement at December’s United Nations climate conference in Copenhagen for several reasons. First, the country is very vulnerable to the effects of climate change, both those projected to occur within its own territory and those in neighbouring countries.
• Second, India is not solely interested in seeing global emissions adequately reduced as soon as possible. The country also has a direct interest in adaptation measures for coping with projected climate change, which is now inevitable because of the existing inertia in the climate system.
• As a matter of principle, India will firmly dismiss demands from developed nations that their proposed emissions cuts should, in any way, be contingent on rapidly developing economies, such as India and China, committing themselves to emissions limits before 2020. But to demonstrate the country’s seriousness towards shared action, India has a domestic programme — the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) — that it could, at an appropriate stage of the negotiations, offer as part of a global package of commitments.

(4) China expects leadership from rich nations

• The Chinese perspective is that reaching a deal will depend largely on decisive mitigation action being taken by the developed nations. The developing nations will have every reason to follow suit if the rich nations demonstrate leadership and commit to more substantial cuts than they have offered so far.
• All nations require adaptation, but developed countries have adaptive capacity whereas the developing ones do not. Financial resources are thus required to help the poorer countries to adapt.
• So far, little external funding has been forthcoming. Some development assistance will be provided by rich nations, but this is far less than what is needed. The uncertainty over financing is a major barrier to a global climate deal.
• To achieve a solution, developed countries must show leadership in Copenhagen. They should promise cuts equal to, or deeper than, 40% for 2020. If the Annex I parties are unwilling or unable to do this, the rest of the world would be discouraged from taking serious action. A more likely outcome in Copenhagen would be a statement that the world intends to limit global warming to 2 °C by 2050. Emission reductions and mitigation actions for individual parties will have to be specified later.