Scotland's carbon footprint show consumption is the problem we aren’t dealing with

The most recent data on Scotland's 'carbon footprint' has just been released and while it is pretty depressing, there is a substantial caveat. However, there is then a caveat to that caveat...

In the most recent year for which data is available, Scotland's 'carbon footprint' increased by 14.6 per cent in one year. That is in the context of the drop in the entire devolution period being 19.9 per cent. Scotland's carbon footprint looks like it has risen nearly as much in one year as it fell in two decades.

But this is misleading – for two reasons. The first is that these are proportionate rises – if you cut something by 20 per cent and then increase that smaller number by 20 per cent, you end up with a number smaller than you started with. The second is more significant; this data is from 2021. This one-year increase is largely a rebound from the worst year of lockdown.

And yet there is much to be concerned about here. To understand why, it is worth understanding the difference between 'carbon emissions' and 'carbon footprint'. The former is a simple measure of the direct emissions of carbon dioxide which are produced in Scottish territory. This conveniently ignores any Scottish oil-based emissions if the oil was sold overseas.

The concept of 'carbon footprint' is both more and less helpful. As a way of thinking about carbon emissions, it was initially a trick being played by the oil and gas industry. Their plan was to try linguistically to make it sound like carbon emissions were the fault of individual people through their actions, not a structural problem. It was a way to push climate change action into a 'consumer choice' agenda and away from an 'industrial regulation' agenda.

And yet if you expand 'footprint' from the personal to the national, it starts to become much more effective as a measure. The key difference in that 'carbon footprint' measures the impact of the totality of our lifestyles. It captures the embedded carbon in goods we consume from elsewhere in the world, not just our direct emissions.

Including this demonstrates the problem. The calculation has three components; the carbon embedded in goods and services we import (though strangely only the production emissions – the transportation emissions are 'disappeared'), emissions from domestic UK production of goods and services, and household emissions (heating, electricity, transport etc). This is a much more realistic assessment of what Scotland is doing to the planet.

The story is a simple one; our damage is largely about consumption, not so much 'just living'. The carbon emissions which it took to produce the stuff we buy from abroad (even ignoring transportation) accounts for over 53 per cent of our total emissions. Meanwhile only 19.6 per cent of our emissions come from the activities of us living in our households – heating, lighting, petrol for the car...

The remaining 27 per cent comes from our consumption of UK goods and services. Or, looked at another way, one fifth of our carbon comes from living, four fifths from shopping (though of course shopping includes essentials like food and clothing).

The patterns tell us a lot as well. Since devolution the carbon coming from domestic consumption is dropping significantly (45 per cent to 27 per cent) and international import-based emissions is rising (37 per cent to 53 per cent). Given that we omit transportation for international goods, this probably means our real emissions are getting worse as a result of our consumption patterns.

Meanwhile you would assume that the one area where our carbon emissions would have dropped over the devolution years was our household emissions. Surely with new building practices, better insulation, more renewable energy and a much higher public consciousness they are falling proportionately?

Nope. Over the devolution years they have risen from 18 to 19.6 proportionately (though in absolute terms they have fallen a less-than-impressive 12 per cent in 25 years). In part this is because the housing developer lobby has repeatedly fought tooth and nail against better house building standards. That we are still building houses that will not be energy-compliant in 20 years is a scandal.

This one year bounce-back is, in itself, not a reason for panic. But underneath these numbers there is little to be reassured by. We are consuming our way to climate catastrophe and our politicians are so addicted to the feel-good effect of consumption that no-one will seriously talk about it never mind address it.

Yes, this is a complicated picture. All of this is about proportions of a total which has fallen by nearly a fifth in 25 years, and yet it is very hard to be convinced that we are 'doing what we can'. We're not. Almost all the gains in 25 years appear to be coming from a transition to renewable energy, the price of which has collapsed in that time. It would probably have happened for economic reasons anyway.

Unless we adopt a plan of concerted action which particularly targets the problem of consumption (like Common Weal's Common Home Plan which has major sections on deconsumerisation), we will continue to stall our progress towards maintaining an liveable planet.