More Than 25% Of CO2 Emissions Come From Buying Cheap Foreign Goods

BY Ariel Schwartz
Wed Apr 27, 2011

Ethonomic Indicator of the Day: 26% -- the amount of global CO2 emissions that come from the production of traded goods and services.

A quick look around your home or office should yield the obvious conclusion that we rely heavily on international trade for many of the nice things we like to do, eat, and play with. But a global economy comes with a heavy greenhouse gas cost. In fact, 26% of all carbon emissions come from the production of traded goods and services. So while clothes from China may be cheap to produce, buying them and having them shipped to you comes with a future cost that many of us would like to ignore.