The Chinadependence report has just come out - Saturday 6 October was the day that the world as a whole went into ecological debt for this year - Chinadependence published by nef reveals the many ways in which Britain is becoming increasingly dependent on the rest of the world to fuel our high-consuming lifestyles. See BBC report here.Photo: China's rising consumption of coal is largely to make goods for the western world
China is being increasingly blamed for the rise in its CO2 emissions but as the report says, it is the richer countries who are fuelling the demand. And 'outsourcing' production to China, where costs were cheaper, has led to a remorseless rise in greenhouse gases because China uses more fossil-fuel power plants.
Andrews Simms from nef says: "As China is increasingly attacked because of its rising pollution levels, people overlook two important issues. First, per person, China's greenhouse gas emissions are a fraction of those in Europe and the United States. Second, a closer look at trade flows reveals that a large share of China's rising emissions is due to the dependence of the rest of the world on exports from China - a Chinadependence."
All this comes as other research shows that a high quality of life is as easy to achieve at very low levels of consumption as at high levels, and as awareness is growing that the pursuit of high-consuming lifestyles undermines well-being.
- From all trading partners in total, the UK imported 14,000 tonnes of chocolate covered waffles, and exported 15,000 tonnes.
- We both imported from and exported to Italy, 600 tonnes of, 'gums and other jelly confectionary'.
- We sent 21 tonnes of mineral water all the way to Australia and brought 20 tonnes all the way back.
- The large, two-way traffic of beer between Spain and the UK is also almost identical in amount
2 comments:
You metioned in an earlier post about the 'con' which is the sale of expensive bottled water. Well, I always wince when I see 'foreign' (i.e. imported water in the shops). In a Co-op in Italy, theye were selling Greek bottled water. How crazy is that?
Further, with regard to China, it is not so much as us being dependent on imports from China but deliberately putting our production facilities there - outsourcing - with companies set up in low or zero-tax zones, where Western companies and their shareholders can profit from low wages and lower environmental standards as well as low taxes... although the first two will inevitably change.
And, having placed our producion in China we leave it to them to exploit other countries for tehir raw materials and we can be all smug herein Europe and blame those chinese for not respcting human rights....
Interesting post and comment - hadn't thought of it like that - James T
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