Rich nations outsourcing pollution to China, says UN report

The world's richest countries are increasingly outsourcing their carbon pollution to China and other rising economies, according to a draft UN report.

The problem stems from electronic devices such as smartphones, cheap clothes and other goods being made in China and other rising economies but consumed in the US and Europe.

The draft of the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases warming the planet grew twice as fast in the first decade of the 21st century than during the previous three decades.

Much of that rise was due to the burning of coal. And much of that coal went to power factories in rising economies that produce goods for US and European consumers.

Since 2000, annual carbon dioxide emissions for rising economies more than doubled to nearly 14 billion tonnes a year, according to the draft report. But about 2 billion tonnes a year of that was produced making goods for export.

"A growing share of CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion in developing countries is released in the production of goods and services exported, notably from upper-middle income countries to high-income countries," the report says.