Emissions affected by trade among developing countries

Sir

As the climate-change conference in Copenhagen approaches, attention is focused on the dialogue between developed and developing countries (see http://www.nature.com/roadtocopenhagen). But the impact of the growing links between developing countries should not be overlooked.

China is investing heavily in African countries, focusing mainly on improving their infrastructure, as shown by the China Statistical Yearbook 2009 (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2009). From 1991–2007, imports to China from Africa — chiefly raw materials and emission-intensive products — grew by a factor of 45, compared with just a sixfold increase in imports from the European Union.

Half of China's recent increase in carbon emissions has been driven by its production of goods for export, 60% of which went to wealthy Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) states (D. Guan et al. Geophys. Res. Lett. 36, L04709; 2009). However, China's imports from Africa are responsible for rapidly increasing African carbon emissions from less than 400,000 tonnes to more than 40 million tonnes between 1991 and 2008 (China Statistical Yearbook 2009 and G. P. Peters et al. Environ. Sci. Technol 42, 5; 2008). These already account for 5% of Africa's total emissions.

Addressing global greenhouse-gas emissions requires action from developed countries, but also cooperation by developing countries. The more prosperous developing nations have a critical role: by linking resource providers and consumers they can funnel the spillovers of low-carbon technologies to the less developed. Success depends on large-scale financial and technological flow, initiated by OECD countries, with an effective mechanism for sustaining a strong increase in resources and in technology.