We are repeatedly told that climate change is an existential emergency.
British families are told to replace their cars, change their boilers, eat differently, fly less and accept higher energy costs. Farmers are expected to surrender productive countryside for industrial energy developments. Businesses face carbon reporting, environmental levies and increasingly expensive electricity.
Yet while ordinary people are being instructed to reduce their “carbon footprint”, the global economic system continues to move ever greater quantities of goods, raw materials and people across the planet.
Factories have been transferred thousands of miles from the consumers they serve. Food is transported between continents. Components cross multiple borders before the finished product reaches the customer. Online retailers promise next-day delivery on goods manufactured on the other side of the world.
Aircraft carry passengers and freight in volumes unimaginable in 1990, while enormous container ships sustain supply chains stretching from Asian factories to European warehouses.
That leads to an unavoidable question:
If the international political establishment genuinely believes that rising CO₂ emissions represent an emergency, why has it continued to support an economic model built around ever-expanding global transport?
The figures are difficult to reconcile with the rhetoric.
Since 1990, global fossil CO₂ emissions have risen dramatically. Emissions from international aviation and shipping have increased even faster. Road-transport emissions have also climbed substantially despite improvements in engine efficiency, vehicle design and fuel economy.
This does not prove that CO₂ has no climatic effect. Nor does it invalidate every measure intended to reduce emissions.
It demonstrates something politically more uncomfortable:
National climate restrictions imposed on households, motorists, farmers and domestic industry cannot deliver meaningful global reductions while the international economy continues expanding the distances over which goods and people are transported.
What has happened since 1990?
The European Commission’s Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research. EDGAR , provides annual fossil-CO₂ estimates by country and sector from 1970 to 2024. Its fossil-CO₂ figures cover fuel combustion and major industrial processes but exclude land-use change and large-scale biomass burning.
The rounded figures show the scale of the increase:
Emissions source1990-2024
Approximate increase
Total global fossil CO₂22.66 billion tonnes- to39.63 billion tonnes. A 74.9% increase
International aviation261 million tonnes- to 614 million tonnes. A 135.6% increase
International shipping371 million tonnes- to 698 million tonnes. A 88.0% increase
Global road transportApproximately 3.4 billion tonnes-to Just over 6 billion tonnes Approximately a 75–80% increase
The road-transport comparison is necessarily more approximate because international datasets differ in their treatment of vehicle categories, biofuels and sector boundaries.
However, the direction is beyond reasonable dispute.
The IPCC estimated that road transport produced approximately 6.1 billion tonnes of CO₂-equivalent emissions in 2019, representing around 69% of transport-sector emissions.
The International Energy Agency reports that road emissions remained just over six billion tonnes in 2024.The International Energy Agency also reported that total energy-related CO₂ emissions reached a record 37.8 billion tonnes in 2024.
Although this measure is slightly narrower than the EDGAR fossil-CO₂ total, it confirms the same central fact:
global emissions are not falling. They reached another record.
Global emissions have risen by three-quarters. In 1990, global fossil CO₂ emissions were approximately 22.7 billion tonnes.By 2024, they had reached approximately 39.6 billion tonnes.
That means the world is now releasing roughly 17 billion additional tonnes of fossil CO₂ every year compared with 1990.There have been temporary interruptions. Emissions fell during economic recessions and declined sharply during the 2020 pandemic.
But once economic and transport activity resumed, emissions rebounded.The overall direction has remained upwards.
The IEA says emerging and developing economies accounted for the growth in 2024, reflecting expanding populations, industrial activity, electricity demand and improved energy access.
Reductions in some advanced economies were outweighed by increases elsewhere and by rising emissions from international aviation and marine transport.
That distinction matters.
Britain or the European Union may report lower territorial emissions after closing factories, reducing coal use or transferring manufacturing abroad.
But the atmosphere does not recognise national accounting boundaries.
A tonne of CO₂ emitted while manufacturing British consumer goods in China does not become environmentally harmless because it appears in China’s national inventory rather than Britain’s.
Aviation emissions have more than doubled. International aviation emissions increased from approximately 261 million tonnes in 1990 to 614 million tonnes in 2024.That represents an increase of around 136%.Aircraft have become more fuel-efficient. Engines have improved, airframes are lighter and airlines generally carry more passengers per flight. But efficiency improvements have been overwhelmed by the expansion of aviation.The IEA reported that aviation emissions rose by approximately 5.5% in 2024 amid record passenger demand.
Aviation’s recovery following the pandemic was one of the factors pushing global emissions upwards.
World Bank data based on International Civil Aviation Organization statistics records approximately 4.27 billion passenger journeys by registered air carriers in 2023, despite the industry still recovering from the disruption of 2020 and 2021.Air transport is no longer limited to occasional international travel. It is embedded within global business, tourism, express delivery, high-value manufacturing and perishable-food supply chains.
Consumers can now purchase flowers, seafood, fruit, electronics and fashion products that have travelled thousands of miles by air.
The political response is usually to promise sustainable aviation fuels, more efficient aircraft or future electric and hydrogen technologies. Yet the underlying question is rarely confronted:
Should an economic system supposedly facing a climate emergency continue encouraging limitless growth in aviation demand?
Shipping emissions have nearly doubled. International shipping emissions increased from approximately 371 million tonnes in 1990 to around 698 million tonnes in 2024.That is an increase of approximately 88%.Shipping is efficient when measured per tonne of cargo transported. A large modern vessel can carry enormous quantities of goods using much less fuel per tonne-mile than aircraft or lorries.
But efficiency per tonne does not prevent total emissions from rising when the quantity of cargo and the distances travelled increase relentlessly.
UN Trade and Development reported that global maritime trade reached approximately 12.3 billion tonnes in 2023. More than 80% of internationally traded goods by volume are carried by sea.
By comparison, world seaborne trade was below five billion tonnes during the 1990s. UNCTAD recorded approximately 4.76 billion tonnes in 1996, illustrating the enormous expansion that has taken place over the globalisation era.
The World Trade Organization says world trade volume has expanded at an average rate of approximately 4% a year since the WTO was established in 1995, with trade rising steeply during the subsequent globalisation period.
Shipping therefore reveals the contradiction particularly clearly.Governments subsidise domestic decarbonisation while simultaneously supporting trade policies that increase the volume of products moved between continents.
Europe may impose stringent environmental costs on its own steel, chemical, fertiliser and manufacturing industries, only to import replacement products manufactured under different environmental and energy standards.
The factory disappears from Europe’s emissions account.The goods do not disappear.They are simply produced elsewhere and carried back across the world by ship.
Road emissions have continued rising
Road transport is the largest component of transport emissions.In 2019, the IPCC estimated that road transport produced approximately 6.1 billion tonnes of CO₂-equivalent emissions, around 69% of total transport emissions. Its broader analysis found that road-transport emissions grew at an average rate of approximately 1.7% a year between 2010 and 2019.The IEA says road emissions remained just over six billion tonnes in 2024. More than 60% came from passenger cars and vans, while trucks were responsible for approximately one-third.This is not simply a story about private motorists.
A considerable share comes from the freight system that globalisation has created:
imported goods moved from ports to distribution centres;
components transported between factories;
supermarket supply chains;
delivery vans serving internet retail;
heavy lorries carrying products to warehouses;
priority and next-day deliveries;
empty or partially loaded return journeys.
Road transport is where international trade becomes domestic mileage.
The container arriving at a British port does not transport itself to a warehouse. The imported food does not move itself into supermarkets. The online order does not deliver itself to the customer.International shipping, road haulage, warehousing and final delivery are connected parts of the same system.
The IPCC already knows that trade matters
The correct abbreviation is IPCC: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.It is important to be fair about its formal role.
The IPCC assesses scientific research; it does not directly legislate, impose taxes or determine national energy policy.Nor can it be credibly claimed that the IPCC has completely ignored globalisation.
Its Sixth Assessment Report acknowledges that emissions embodied in international trade represent approximately 20% to 33% of global emissions, depending on the methodology used. It also recognises that increasing international trade has shifted some fossil-fuel emissions between producing and consuming countries.
The IPCC also states that transport emissions can be reduced through demand management, altered economic models, lower freight demand, supply-chain management and shifts towards more efficient transport modes.
The evidence is therefore present within the climate establishment’s own reports.
The legitimate criticism is that this part of the evidence receives far less political attention than policies aimed at domestic households and businesses.
Where are the emergency international conferences demanding shorter supply chains?
Where are the binding targets for reducing the distance travelled by imported goods?
Where are the campaigns against air-freighting non-essential consumer products?
Where are the demands to end planned obsolescence and the constant replacement of cheaply manufactured goods?
Where is the serious programme for rebuilding domestic manufacturing so that essential products do not travel halfway around the planet?
Where are the climate demonstrations against trade arrangements that make it commercially rational to manufacture products under coal-intensive electricity systems and transport them thousands of miles to consumers?
Climate advocates frequently call for restrictions on motorists, gas boilers, meat consumption, farming and domestic energy production.
Yet far less is said about the economic model that has produced a 136% increase in international aviation emissions, an 88% increase in shipping emissions and an enormous expansion in road freight.
That imbalance should be challenged.
Territorial accounting allows governments to export the problem
Most national climate targets are based primarily on territorial emissions: the emissions physically released within a country’s borders.This creates a perverse incentive.
A country that manufactures its own steel, machinery, fertiliser, chemicals and consumer goods records the associated emissions domestically.
A country that closes those industries and imports the same products can report a reduction.
The consumption may remain unchanged.
The products may be manufactured using more carbon-intensive electricity. Additional emissions may be generated by shipping, port operations, warehousing and road haulage.Yet the importing country can still claim climate progress.
This is not genuine decarbonisation if worldwide emissions have merely been relocated.It is carbon offshoring.
The IPCC’s recognition that a substantial share of global emissions is embodied in international trade demonstrates why territorial figures alone cannot tell the whole story.
A serious climate policy would publish consumption-based emissions alongside territorial emissions and would stop presenting industrial decline as an environmental victory.
What would a serious policy look like?
A genuine attempt to reduce worldwide emissions would have to confront the structure of globalisation.
That would not mean ending all international trade. Countries will always exchange products, resources and services. Some goods can only be produced efficiently in particular locations, while shipping can be highly efficient compared with other transport modes.
But it would mean abandoning the assumption that every increase in the movement of goods is automatically beneficial.
A serious approach would include:
1. Rebuilding strategic domestic manufacturing
Britain and Europe should produce more of the essential goods they consume, particularly steel, chemicals, fertiliser, energy equipment, medicines and strategically important manufactured products.
Domestic production should be powered by reliable and increasingly efficient energy, including nuclear power, rather than displaced to countries using more carbon-intensive systems.
2. Measuring consumption emissions honestly
Governments should report the emissions embodied in imported products alongside domestic territorial emissions.
A country should not be permitted to claim success merely because its factories have moved abroad.
3. Shortening supply chains
Food, construction materials and everyday manufactured goods should be produced closer to the markets they serve wherever this is practical and economical.
Resilient regional supply chains would reduce transport dependency while improving energy security, food security and national resilience.
4. Confronting disposable consumption
A climate strategy that ignores fast fashion, low-quality imported products, planned obsolescence and next-day delivery is not serious about resource use.Products should be durable, repairable and designed to last.
5. Applying consistent standards to imports
Domestic producers should not be burdened with environmental costs that imported competitors can avoid.Border measures should reflect genuine production emissions, energy sources and transport impacts rather than becoming another revenue-raising mechanism imposed selectively on domestic industry.
6. Addressing freight and aviation demandTechnology can improve efficiency, but efficiency alone has repeatedly been overwhelmed by growth in demand.Governments and climate organisations must be prepared to discuss the total volume of freight and aviation, not merely promise that future fuels will eventually solve the problem.
The question climate advocates must answer
The world’s climate institutions have produced thousands of pages of analysis.
Governments have passed legislation, created carbon budgets, subsidised technologies and imposed substantial costs on households and businesses.
Yet since 1990:global fossil CO₂ emissions have increased by approximately 75%;international aviation emissions have increased by approximately 136%;international shipping emissions have increased by approximately 88%;road-transport emissions have risen by roughly three-quarters;maritime trade has expanded to more than 12 billion tonnes a year;and world trade has grown rapidly throughout the globalisation era.
These figures do not show a world changing course.They show a world attempting to sustain the same model of production, consumption and long-distance transportation while attaching an increasingly complicated climate bureaucracy to it.
The challenge to the IPCC, climate scientists, campaigners and political advocates is therefore straightforward:
Why are ordinary citizens being asked to accept increasingly severe restrictions while the international economic system continues increasing the movement of goods and people around the world? And why is a British factory closure celebrated as decarbonisation when its replacement goods are manufactured overseas and shipped back to Britain?
If climate change is genuinely the emergency that political leaders claim, then tinkering around the edges will not be enough.
The world would have to reconsider the relentless pursuit of ever-longer supply chains, ever-cheaper imports, ever-higher freight volumes and limitless aviation growth.
It would have to place resilience above dependency, durability above disposability, domestic capability above carbon offshoring and genuine worldwide emissions reductions above national accounting tricks.
Until political leaders confront that contradiction, the public is entitled to question whether climate policy is really designed to reduce global emissions , or whether it has become a mechanism for transferring industry, wealth and political control while the worldwide emissions total continues to rise.
Shane Oxer — Campaigner for fairer and affordable energy
SAY NO TO THE DESTRUCTION OF OUR LAND 
Leave a comment