BEIS is not telling the truth on carbon emissions

The UK Government's Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) is claiming a 44% drop in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 to 2018 [1] but it is not telling the truth.


New York Times

The first chart is taken from a New York Times article of 2018 [2]. The UK has lost much of its manufacturing industry and now imports many carbon-intensive goods, especially from China.






DEFRA

The second chart is from a report UK's Carbon Footprint 1997 - 2016 [3] from the UK Government's Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, again showing how a decline in the UK's territorial emissions has been cancelled out by an increase in emissions embedded in imports.





BEIS

The third chart, from BEIS claims a 44% reduction in UK greenhouse gas emissions [1] but makes no mention of imports.

Claire Perry (UK Government minister) said "We can be proud that we continue to lead the way in reducing emissions while growing our economy" [4]. Is she really proud that the UK has lost so much of its manufacturing industry, and now imports so much? Is she really advocating that other countries should follow this example? Or is this deliberate "misinformation"?




Furthermore, the BEIS figures do not include international aviation or shipping, or emissions from burning biomass (mainly wood) which the BEIS treats as zero carbon. With these included (as they must be), the total has increased.

Reaction to BEIS failing to tell the truth







References

[1] BEIS: 2018 UK Greenhouse gas emissions, provisional figures (March 2019)
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/790626/2018-provisional-emissions-statistics-report.pdf

[2] Brad Plumer (2018) You've Heard of Outsourced Jobs, but Outsourced Pollution? It's Real, and Tough to Tally Up https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/climate/outsourcing-carbon-emissions.html

[3] DEFRA UK's Carbon Footprint 1997 - 2016 https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/794557/Consumption_emissions_April19.pdf

[4] Greenhouse gas emissions in UK fell 3% in 2018, official figures show (2019) https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/28/greenhouse-gas-emissions-uk-fell-3-per-cent-in-2018-official-figures

[5] Greta Thunberg (2019) Can you hear me? https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/23/greta-thunberg-full-speech-to-mps-you-did-not-act-in-time

[6] Corbyn pledges Labour transparency on UK carbon footprint (Jul 2019)
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/14/climate-crisis-carbon-emissions-leakage-labour-party-corbyn

[7] Extinction Rebellion https://rebellion.earth/

Last updated: 15 Oct 2019