Posted on behalf of Roberta Kwok

If you buy it, you’re responsible for the carbon emissions. That’s the latest tack taken by China’s top climate change negotiator, who said Monday that his country should not be held responsible for emissions produced while manufacturing goods for other nations.

Li Gao said that 15-20% of China’s carbon emissions are produced making exported goods. “This share of emissions should be taken by the consumers but not the producers,” he said at talks hosted by the Pew Center on Global Climate Change in Washington DC (BBC).

Representatives from the European Union and Japan said they did not agree with Gao’s assessment. Countries should be responsible for emissions from their own territories, said Artur Runge-Metzger, head of the climate change strategy and international negotiations unit at the European Commission (Associated Press).

But a Wall Street Journal blog notes that an academic study published last year suggests Gao’s strategy might be more accurate. If you tally countries’ emissions based on consumption rather than production, the United States’ emissions go up by about 7%, while China’s go down by about 6%.

The talks are a prelude to a December conference in Copenhagen, where countries will begin negotiating a new international climate change treaty. The US and China both refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol, set to expire in 2012 (AP). China is currently the United States’ top importer (Reuters).

Image: NREL