More Climate Ethics: E.G., China

Another interesting ethical realm for debate in connection to climate change: what does it say if a country’s overall greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) are said to have fallen, but have actually risen if one factors in all the emissions related to the products that country imports and its population buys? The U.K.’s in this situation, according to a new study. Are those product-related emissions “their” problem, or ours? The impacts, of course, are global. It’s a question I was asked several times when I was in China earlier this year talking about livestock and GHGs. “Do the GHGs of all the products you buy, whose production you outsourced to us,” Chinese colleagues queried, “belong on our GHG inventory, or yours?” What’s the fair — er ethical — answer?