Word: globalizers
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...Still, Europe's demand for soya means it has no choice but to import GMOs, since about 75% to 80% of the global soya crop is from transgenic breeds. The E.U. rules mean imported GM food has to be labeled and separated along the supply chain to safeguard against "contamination" of organic farms. Any produce containing more than 0.9% GM content must be labeled as such, a policy that can lead to shipments being sent back...
...Could public opinion now be changing? Recent debate over food security may be having an effect. The U.N. says the world population is set to reach 9 billion by 2050, requiring a 70% rise in global food production to feed the planet. With the added threat of climate change, GMOs like drought-resistant crops could offer hope that global demand will be met. "European public opinion on GMOs was shaken two years ago with the food crisis, when prices spiked wildly and there were riots around the world," says Jo Swinnen, senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Studies...
...University synthesized carbon emissions and trade patterns and found that more than one-third of CO2 emissions related to the consumption of goods and services in developed countries are actually emitted outside their national borders. Rich nations are essentially outsourcing some of their carbon emissions to developing nations through global trade - by importing goods and services from abroad - thereby shrinking their carbon footprints while inflating those of major exporting nations like China. "It's surprising just how much this effect is driven by the U.S. and China," says Steven Davis, an ecologist at the Carnegie Institution and the lead author...
...significant? Davis and his co-author Ken Caldeira estimate that 23% of global CO2 emissions - about 6.2 billion metric tons - are traded internationally, usually going from carbon-intensive developing nations like China to the comparatively less carbon intensive West. In a few rich nations, such as France, Sweden and Britain, more than 30% of consumption-based emissions could be traced to origins abroad; if those emissions were tallied on the other side of the balance sheet, it would add more than four tons of CO2 per person in several European nations...
...real implications of the new paper could come in international climate policy. The U.N. system is built around the idea of capping carbon emissions from individual nations. But which country is responsible for the carbon emitted in global trade? The buyer or the seller? The study demonstrates that carbon leakage - emissions moving from relatively green countries like France or Germany to more carbon-intensive ones like Russia or China - is already occurring. The question is whether the leakage will accelerate if, for instance, developed nations institute tough carbon caps and drive out carbon-intensive industries, which will...