After adopting the Kyoto Protocol way back in 1997, developed countries have reduced their carbon emissions drastically. However, reports suggest that global CO2 emissions have risen by 35%. Often we hear of developing nations being blamed for failure to enforce environmental regulations. But a new study in ES&T shows that 5.3 gigatons of the planet’s carbon emissions come from international trade. And most of this trade serves the consumers in the developed countries, which have become net importers of carbon emissions. Many developed nations have tries to reduce the carbon emissions but their uncontrolled consumption is turning their environment saving efforts futile.

This trend had been talked of in a paper published last year in ES&T. In this report, Scott Matthews and Christopher Weber of Carnegie Mellon University showed that U.S has outsourced its emissions to its trading partners like China. “It is bit obvious China is producing more to meet consumption in the U.S.,” says Glen Peters of the Industrial Ecology Programme at the Norwegian University of Science and author of the new ES&T study. “Otherwise, China wouldn’t be growing at such a rapid pace.”

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