Yes, I’m getting back to a little bit more on the serious issues again but please don’t be put off by the title.

A while back I intended to write a long article that never happened and this issue was going to play a part in it.

The primary inspiration for it was an article on the BBC’s website which I really can’t be bothered to hunt out now which reported that only Britain and Sweden in the EU were on target to meet the conditions of the Kyoto agreement as regards carbon-emissions.

Good news of course to us conscientious environmentally aware and active Brits that we’re leading the world on this issue. I remember too well the news back in the 80′s when Britain was branded the ‘dirty man’ of Europe with our factories belching out sulphur dioxide that was destroying the forests of Norway, Sweden and Finland. We’ve obviously come a very long way since then. Or have we?

Now we’ve had a bit of news the last few days that actually the UK’s carbon emissions rose last year but I’m not going to jump onto that issue to take an all too easy swipe at the Government. I’m more interested in longer term trends and patterns which, at least as far as your humble Penguin can surmise, have gone completely unnoticed.

Here’s where we get into a bit of economics. I want to introduce the concept of comparative competitive advantage. It’s a well established economic theory which basically means one country can produce some goods better or more efficiently than the other so if countries trade the goods they are both best at, the whole system is more efficient, productive etc etc etc.

The classical example of this is to consider two countries. Country A is somewhere say in the Caribbean, nice hot climate but not much in the way of industrial raw materials. Country B is somewhere in northern Europe, much colder climate but relatively rich in terms of mineral and energy resources. Country A can produce Bananas a lot better than country B because it’s got the right climate. However country A requires various agricultural equipment and tools that country B is better placed to manufacture. So they happily produce what they’re best at, trade the goods, everything is more efficiently done and everyone’s happy.

With that in mind I’d like to return to this Britain seeming to be doing quite well on the old Kyoto targets compared to everyone else except Sweden.

I know we’re doing a lot in the UK on this, we should be doing more but we are in terms of our environmental regulation on industry a lot better than most. However this did puzzle me as to why some of the other EU countries weren’t up there particularly those who have been seen to be more ‘green’ than us in the past.

This is where I would like to introduce a ‘new’ concept. Now I have been looking around quite a bit for relevant information and personally I can find no one anywhere who has touched on this issue and it is very important if we are serious about building a long-term sustainable world for the future of our species. As I can’t find anyone who has contemplated this issue then I’m going to claim it as my own although I’d be happy to defer to anyone who can find mention of it else where.

I’m going to call it ‘comparative false carbon off-setting’. Bit of a mouthful I know but bear with me.

This is the theory that by off-setting swathes of economic activity, individual countries can appear at least on the outset as being ‘greener’ than others. So here goes, a brief overview of the UK as an example.

Back in the 70′s, Britain had quite a large industrial base producing goods that were consumed by the British people in Britain. Along comes the Tories and a few million people on the dole later Britain now has a far smaller industrial base which has continued to shrink ever since.

Now have the British become ever more less the consumer. No, and from my own personal experience in comparing to other countries I think it is fair to say that the Brits are some of the most voracious consumers out there. We love all the latest things, clothes, consumer electricals, cars etc etc. So although our ability to produce the goods at home as it were has declined, our desire to purchase has not, and if anything it has increased considerably over the last 30 years.

This means we have to import the goods from elsewhere. We afford to do this by shifting our economic activity to the service sector and here’s where the problem is. However you want to look at it, our economy is built on a service sector that comparably produces less pollution/carbon-emissions than industrial production. Good for us in terms of needing less specific energy for manufacturing, processing raw materials and so yes, when taken from that perspective the UK is doing quite nicely in terms of cutting carbon emissions.

The problem arises from us still wanting the manufactured goods which as they are no longer produced at home come from other countries. Countries that do not have as good environmental standards as ourselves. I’m going to single out China as an example of a country that over the past few years has become a major exporter of goods to the UK. Nothing personal against the Chinese but they have come in for some stick on their environmental record, the rapid growth of manufacturing and their willingness to use high carbon emitting energy sources such as coal to fuel their economy.

Here’s where I find that us Brits put ourselves in a position of being a bit on the hypocritical side because we are happy to blame countries such as China for not doing enough to curb their carbon emissions but that very rise in emissions is of a direct response to the demand for goods by our good selves that the Chinese produce.

We have, through poor economic policy started in the 1980′s left ourselves with the inability to feed those demands at home and thus require not only that the material goods we consumer be manufactured in a way that produces more carbon emissions than it would in our more highly regulated economy, but equally then have to be shipped from the other side of the world incurring yet more carbon emissions.

While countries like France and Germany who aren’t on target to meet their Kyoto targets but still retain large manufacturing bases to supply local demand of their consumers. We have in effect off-set the pollution/carbon-emissions of the manufacturing process required to meet many of our own consumer demands which creates a false image of the relative ‘greeness’ of the economies of different countries.

If we were to try and address this issue by compiling carbon footprints based not just on the economic activity within one economy but by analysing the carbon emissions generated by what is actually consumed then I fear that the UK may not come out in quite so rosy a light as it has done.

Anyway, there’s a thought to consider.