Post-Brexit: Trading with countries further afield could ramp up UK emissions 88 per cent
Replacing the trade lost between the UK and the EU since 2018 with deal with countries further afield could increase emissions by 88 per cent, new analysis has suggested.
The added distance of travel amounts to around 6.5m tonnes of CO2, according to cross-party advocacy group Best for Britain and UK Trade Business – the equivalent of some 44,000 flights between London and New York annually over four years.
“This would be a staggering increase in emissions – and one entirely driven by this Government’s ideological opposition to the European single market,” former Green party leader Caroline Lucas said.
To offset such an increase in emissions, the UK would have to plant a forest the size of Northern Ireland, the research found.
Director of the University College London Institute for Sustainable Resources, Paul Ekins urged the government to look at ways to improve trading arrangement with EU nations, as it makes both commercial and environmental sense.
“It’s quite simple, the farther you need to move goods, other things being equal, the more emissions you create and so increasing our carbon footprint is pretty much baked into increasing trade with countries like Australia and the US over countries in Europe,” he said.
It follows the UK dropping key climate requirements from a draft of its trade deal with Australia, to get the deal ‘over the line’.
A leaked email from a senior government official suggested that business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng and former trade secretary Liz Truss agreed to cut references to temperature goals, as outlined by the Paris Agreement, Sky News reported.
Traded goods between the UK and the EU in the first quarter of the year sank more than 23 per cent in comparison with the first quarter of 2018, according to the Office for National Statistics.