Buyer, Beware: China Says Importing Countries Responsible for Its Emissions

Environmental Capital,

WSJ Blogs

• March 17, 2009, 10:10 AM ET,By Keith Johnson
• China’s latest climate-change gambit is to make countries that import its stuff responsible for a share of its emissions. It might not be such a crazy idea.
• Chinese climate negotiators, in Washington laying the groundwork for international climate talks later this year, floated the idea yesterday. Chinese factories churning out stuff for the developed world account for between 15% and 25% of China’s total greenhouse-gas emissions, top climate negotiator Li Gao said. Which means the developed world should take responsibility for them:
  

  “We produce products and these products are consumed by other countries, especially the developed countries. This share of emissions should be taken by the consumers but not the producers,” he said.

  Other climate-policy types in Washington quickly poured cold water on the idea. Such emissions accounting would be a logistical nightmare, for starters. And if rich countries “own” those export emissions, they would then have oversight over what goes on in those Chinese factories, which probably wouldn’t sit well with Beijing.

  But a pair of academics who’ve been studying the relationship between trade and emissions suggest China’s idea would have a couple of advantanges.