The United States and other nations that trade heavily with China are indirectly responsible for nearly a quarter of China’s carbon emissions, according to a briefing note issued late Friday by the U.K.’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.

Last week, we wrote about a new study showing that global carbon emissions in 2006 were 35 percent above the 1990 baseline set down in the Kyoto Protocol. For some time, head-scratching over a successor treaty to Kyoto has occupied climate scientists and economists. This task is becoming much more difficult as it becomes clear that carbon-emissions trends may not belong to individual nations at all, but the fluid trade systems that weave them together. “[Research] suggests that a focus on emissions within national borders may miss the point,” the Tyndall authors write.

Tao Wang and Jim Watson conclude in the briefing note, titled “Who Owns China’s Carbon Emissions?”:

Whilst the nation state is at the heart of most international negotiations and treaties such as those for combating climate change, global trade means that a county’s carbon footprint is open to some interpretation. Should countries be concerned with emissions within their borders (as is currently the case), or should they also be responsible for emissions due to the production of good and services they consume? The scale of emissions from exports from countries such as China and the neglect of emissions from international transport provide some arguments for the latter approach.

This research opens the door for confusion and contradiction among players in the U.S. climate debates. Are proponents of free-trade likely to voluntarily accept research about–and therefore responsibility for–the fraction of trade partners’ emissions generated by goods the U.S. buys? Will U.S. companies that move production off-shore, to China and other developing countries, count emissions in the nation they are generated or the nation their goods are sold? How can proponents of national legislation restrict themselves to Congress, when only international treaties can address the full carbon footprint of American consumers. These questions strike at the heart of what it means to live in a globalized world–and even who we are as individuals, Americans? Global consumers? Economic players on the playing field of international economic regulatory bodies, such as NAFTA or the World Trade Organization? These questions need to be answered as a post-Kyoto plan is designed.

Click on figure for more detail. See below for more discussion:

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… I hope this article will tide you over: “Offsets – Hype Or Hope?” by me. The article is published in Bridges, the publication of the Office of Science & Technology at the Embassy of Austria in Washington, DC.

I do intend to do more posting on offsets, since they continue to attract more interest than they probably deserve.

Mass extinction is certainly one of the gravest threats posed by climate change. A new paleoclimate study underscores the danger:

We analysed the fossil record for the last 520 Myr against estimates of low latitude sea surface temperature for the same period. We found that global biodiversity (the richness of families and genera) is related to temperature and has been relatively low during warm ‘greenhouse’ phases, while during the same phases extinction and origination rates of taxonomic lineages have been relatively high. These findings are consistent for terrestrial and marine environments and are robust to a number of alternative assumptions and potential biases. Our results provide the first clear evidence that global climate may explain substantial variation in the fossil record in a simple and consistent manner.

The conclusion of the study, “A long-term association between global temperature and biodiversity, origination and extinction in the fossil record“:

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Global warming threatens our 4th of July celebrations with droughts that have forced communities to scrap plans for fireworks displays. And it threatens our White Chistmases with winter heatwaves. And our Arbor Days with record wildfires. And now it imperils our Halloweens.

In a story headlined, “Rain, Drought, Wipe Out Pumpkin Crops Across U.S.” Fox News reports the frightening news:

Scorching weather and lack of rain this summer wiped out some pumpkin crops from western New York to Illinois, leaving fields dotted with undersized fruit. Other fields got too much rain and their crops rotted.

Pumpkin production is predicted to be down for the second straight year.

One expert ominously predicts a run on pumpkins: “If you’ve got to have them for your 5-year-olds, I certainly would not wait a long time to get them.”

Even Stephen Colbert has reported on what he calls the War on Halloween (though, characteristic of his out-of-the-mainstream politics, he doesn’t make the obvious link to global warming).

The bottom line, however, is clear: Pumpkins (like most people) hate extreme weather. Sadly, global warming means more droughts and more deluges.

What exactly does extreme weather done to pumpkins?

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Climate Progress is happy to introduce Auden Schendler as a guest blogger. Auden is Executive Director for Community and Environmental Responsibility at Aspen Skiing Company. Named a “Climate Crusader” in TIME magazine’s 2006 special issue on climate change, Auden once worked for Amory Lovins at Rocky Mountain Institute (as I did). You can read his full bio here. Auden has unique insight into the difficulties of corporate sustainability in the absence of government leadership and a price for carbon. Welcome, Auden!

Recently, Businessweek covered Aspen Skiing Company’s work on emissions reduction as part of an article titled “Little Green Lies.” The article has received considerable coverage in the blogosphere because it addresses the gap between rhetoric and reality when it comes to business claims on the environment.

Joe asked me if I’d like to clarify that story, and I jumped at the opportunity.

My main point, which probably didn’t get across in the article, is that even at a remarkably progressive company like Aspen Skiing Company, which has strong support from ownership, management, and staff, cutting CO2 emissions is very difficult. Imagine how hard it must be in most standard businesses that don’t have this level of buy-in! This statement may seem obvious, but it cuts against conventional wisdom. Most entities involved in emissions reduction have a stake in saying it’s profitable, relatively easy, and sometimes fun. The NGO community makes its living on this perspective. The government needs its own programs to look good. And corporations have a stake in their perceived success as well.

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