Emissions reductions are misleading, says government's new science adviser

UK's true energy footprint is twice as big as on paper, according to Professor David MacKay
David Adam, environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 1 October 2009 13.28 BST
Britain's reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases are misleading, according to the government's new chief scientist.
Professor David MacKay told the BBC that greenhouse gas emissions created by Britons are probably twice as bad as official figures suggest. The figures are distorted because developing countries now made the goods that Britain buys, he said.
"Our energy footprint has decreased over the last few decades and that's largely because we've exported our industry," MacKay said. "Other countries make stuff for us so we have naughty, naughty China and India out of control with rising emissions but it's because they are making our stuff for us now."
MacKay, a Cambridge University physicist who starts his new job at the Department of Energy and Climate Change(Decc) today, was speaking unofficially in a previously recorded interview. His comments come as talks on a global climate deal continue in Bangkok. The issue of allocating emissions has been highlighted by developing countries including China, whose top climate change negotiator Li Gao earlier this year said developed countries should take responsibility for the emissions generated in making goods.
Mackay added: "It's been estimated by Dieter Helm from the University of Oxford that roughly half of our energy footprint actually lives overseas so our true footprint is twice as big as it looks on paper."
The Helm study, published in December 2007, showed that rises in pollution from aviation, shipping, overseas trade and tourism, which are not measured in the official figures, means that UK carbon consumption has risen significantly over the previous decade.
Under the Kyoto protocol, Britain must reduce its greenhouse gas output to 12.5% below 1990 levels by 2012. According to official figures filed with the UN, Britain's emissions are currently down some 15% compared with 1990.
But the analysis by Helm's team said that UK carbon output has actually risen by 19% over that period, once the missing emissions are included in the figures.
The report said: "This is a dramatic reversal of fortune. It merits an immediate, more detailed and more robust assessment. It suggests that the decline in greenhouse gas emissions from the UK economy may have been to a considerable degree an illusion."
Decc said: "While some emission reductions have resulted from the trend for manufacturing to move overseas, it's internationally accepted that emissions from manufacturing are counted by the country of production."