Are you responsible for China’s pollution?

In 2005, China became the world’s biggest polluter, overtaking the United States and the European Union. While the idea of a global commons means the whole world suffers, it is in Chinese cities, from Shanghai to Tianjin, where the worst effects are being felt. For example, it’s estimated that air pollution in China contributed to 1.2 million premature deaths in 2010.

It is statistics like these that leaders around the world draw on when urging China to get tough on climate change (which it is indeed doing). But is China entirely responsible for this pollution? Or does the rest of the world have a role to play?

Ahead of last year’s UN climate summit, and shortly after over 300,000 people took to the streets of New York for the People’s Climate March, an article in Carbon Brief made exactly that argument: if you have clothes and products bearing a “Made in China” label, you are also responsible for some of China’s pollution. That’s because of China’s total emissions in 2012, 16% went on producing goods for export.

Source: Carbon Brief

Let’s use the example of the UK to put those figures into some context: in 2012, the UK imported products from China worth around 9 billion tonnes of CO₂ emissions. That was the equivalent of approximately 1% of China’s total annual emissions.

The same month that Carbon Brief ran their piece, Slate featured an article making a similar point. Rather than looking at China’s per capita emissions – which include things like factories that make products for foreign markets – the author focused on how many emissions the average person in China is responsible for. The answer? Slightly more than the global average, but nowhere near as much as people in places like the US or Japan.

China knows it has a huge role to play in the fight against climate change, and it’s already started taking steps in the right direction. Now what about the rest of us?

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Author: Stéphanie Thomson is an editor at the World Economic Forum

Image: Boxes of home furniture read “Made in China” at a Costco store in Everett, Massachusetts January 18, 2011. Beijing announced $600 million in deals with U.S. companies on Monday while senior U.S. senators pressed for Congress to get tough with China over “manipulating” its currency, underlining tensions over trade issues on the eve of Chinese President Hu Jintao’s arrival. REUTERS/Brian Snyder