4. Offshoring
Europe's large economies cut the emissions of what they buy by about as many tonnes as the emissions of what they burn. Their cuts did not simply move abroad.
Territorial emissions count what a country burns. Consumption-based emissions count what it buys: territorial output plus the carbon embodied in imports, minus the carbon embodied in exports. OWID publishes both, so "you just exported your emissions" becomes a subtraction.
The UK's consumption emissions fell by 279 Mt against 263 Mt territorially, and Germany's by 277 Mt against 274 Mt. Japan, the US and Canada all cut more on consumption than territorially, and Italy and France cut it by 13 Mt and 8 Mt less, under a tenth of their cuts. Where offshoring does show, it is at the bottom of the chart: Poland's consumption emissions fell by 22 Mt against 39 Mt territorially, and Mexico's and Australia's territorial emissions were flat while their consumption emissions rose by about 50 Mt and 20 Mt.
The same subtraction answers the "China is just the world's factory" reading: China's consumption emissions rose by about 6,200 Mt since 2005, almost exactly as much as its territorial ones. Its own economy, not its export customers, accounts for nearly all of the increase.
Why the percentages mislead. In percentages the objection looks plausible: the UK's territorial emissions fell 46% and its consumption emissions only 36%. But each of these countries imports more carbon than it exports, so its consumption total starts from a larger base and the same tonnage cut is a smaller percentage of it. The question is answered by a subtraction in tonnes.
So what. Anyone reporting a supply-chain (Scope 3) reduction should expect the question did it fall, or did it move? For Europe's largest economies it fell: the carbon they import, net, barely changed while their territorial emissions dropped by a third or more.
Who acts: sustainability reporting and external assurance. Cost of getting it wrong: a claimed reduction that an auditor, or a journalist, reclassifies as an outsourcing decision.
The data
The net-import column is the change since 2005 in the carbon each country imports, net.
The consumption series covers about 120 countries and runs one year behind the territorial one, to 2023 at the latest.