This is

is Scientific American's 60 Second Science.

I'm Christopher Intagliata.

Got a minute?

China emits over a quarter of the world's carbon,

some 10 billion tons.

That's twice what we pump out here in the US, but before the finger wagging begins,

consider that a quarter of China's CO2 emissions come from making exports.

In other words, stuff for countries like us.

And so we're talking about five or six percent of global emissions are in these goods being

exported from China. And you know that may not sound like a lot, but five or six percent of 35 billion tons is a lot of CO2.

Steve Davis is a climate energy scientist at the University of California Irvine.

He and his colleagues wanted to see whether outsourcing manufacturing to China, which happens to be good

for our wallets, is also good for the planet.

spoiler alert, doesn't look like it.

Because China is so reliant on coal for their energy and because also they use less advanced

technologies and processes in some cases,

there's a lot more CO2 being produced

than if those same goods were made in developed countries.

And that's especially true in certain areas of China, like the provinces of Yunnan or Guayjo.

So for every dollar of stuff that's being exported from those provinces, you're getting vastly

more CO2.

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