85% reduction in UK emissions from organic chemicals production. What changed?

Factual Questions
1

The UK Office of National Statistics (ONS) Environmental Accounts (exactly where to follow when I find it…) says that greenhouse gas emissions from UK production of organic chemicals declined by about 85% between 1995 and 2002 (in CO2 equivalents).

The amount the UK produces is fairly similar so do any of you know what has caused the reduction?

Is it a change in process? A change in legislation (e.g. the Montreal protocol)?

Thanks

2

I have no idea about the ONS data, but the UK has moved loads from coal power stations to gas.

Certainly this has helped towards Kyoto, could this help you in your research?

3

What is being defined as organic chemicals production?

4

maybe they closed a lot of works? A lot of polymers stuff has shifted offshore

5

This would be my guess. The offending processes have probably been outsourced to some other country.

6

Considering that the biggest project around my place (Aukra, Norway) is a gas plant that will deliver around 18% of the UK’s electricity for the next twenty-thirty years (The Ormen Lange project) I’ll second the outsourcing-guess. The gas will be delivered directly in both raw and processed form through a pipeline on the ocean floor.

7

But aren’t emissions produced by British companies offshore/elsewhere also included in the overall total?

I’m fairly sure that it’s not as simple as just counting the stuff produced in the actual country.

8

Not necessarily. The specific wording in the OP post is “UK production”, not “UK-controlled companies” or some such. The specific wording may have been chosen with extreme care…

Leaving out unwanted data is one of the methods of “cooking the books” that a lot of organisations (both commercial and governmental) use in studies and reports, depending on what the overall purpose of conducting the study was for in the first place, to achieve a desired goal.

I dont know what it is in this specific case, but unfortunately, it falls on each of us to be aware of potential misleading info in any “report”, “study”, or “poll”. If you have enough interest in the subject matter, always consider double checking.