The strict nature of European laws on CO2 emissions is responsible for a rise in emissions in countries with lower emissions standards, an Austria’s University stated in a press release Thursday.
A research group from the Wegener Center for Climate and Global Change conducted the study which was recently published in the journal “Energy Economics” .
The University of Graz study argues that the cause of the problem is the outsourcing of energy intensive industry branches to countries with lower climate protection standards, which leads to “carbon leakage” rather than global pollution control.
“An exodus of strongly-emitting industries to unregulated developing countries or other repercussions on the world market have increased emissions in these regions,” the APA reported University of Graz economist Karl W Steininger as having stated.
In the past studies have focused primarily on combustion, or burning, emissions.
Though these cause about 90 per cent of global green house gasses, Steininger said the remaining 10 per cent, known as “process emissions” come from the chemical conversion of the starting materials needed for the making of cement.
Europe has thereby exported a total of 40 per cent of its emissions, with the magnitude of the problem underestimated in previous studies, Steininger added, because scientists have in the past primarily focused on combustion emissions.
He said that certain political measures such as introducing a customs duty for items whose production causes higher levels of CO2 emissions would aid in creating climate politics with better global effectiveness.
