A FIRST glance might suggest that we thoughtful UK folk have been very successful in cutting our CO2 emissions, but a careful look at the figures shows that it’s more complicated than that.

The UK production of CO2 has fallen to the lowest level since 1894, (yes! 1894) and is now 36per cent lower than 1990. Coal fired power stations are being phased out, and gas produces less CO2 per electricity unit. Additionally some houses are now more energy efficient and better insulated, though there’s still much more to do.

However these figures don’t include many hidden imported sources of CO2, and the UK has outsourced more than a third of its emissions to other countries. Additionally those from air travel and shipping are just ignored, despite the UK being the largest European producer of both, and the third globally, after the USA and China.

We have a CO2 light economy, with four fifths being service industries, banking, and insurance, with only one fifth manufacturing, so we have to import many finished goods, such as cars, some 85 per cent of new ones, and electrical goods, with the CO2 from making them counted in the constructing countries.

My local supermarket sell radishes from Morocco, bilberries and plums from Chile, grapes from South Africa and sea bass from a Turkish fish farm. While we could grow much more of our own food, and eat seasonally, well over half is imported, often from the other side of the world, and we don’t count the considerable CO2 from the production and transport as ours.

So we haven’t really altered our life styles or appetites at all, and the CO2 reduction is not an individual response, but simply results from the phasing out of coal fired power stations.

It’s about time we took up the personal, individual CO2 reduction challenge.