'Chinadependence: the second UK Interdependence report', reveals a striking rise in our dependence on a wide range of Chinese imports. And, because the greenhouse gas pollution that results from their manufacture is blamed on China, not the consumers in the UK, we are turning China into our 'environmental laundry' with devastating consequences for the planet.

The report reveals that the UK is drifting into ever greater 'Chinadependence.' We are ever more clothing ourselves, furnishing our homes, watching television, listening to music, playing games with our children and even decorating our Christmas trees, courtesy of goods manufactured in China. For example:

• In the last year alone, our spending on imports from China rose 18 per cent to £15.6 billion and, more important environmentally, imports rose 10 per cent by weight to a total of just under 6.5 million tonnes.
• Over the past five years, our spending on, and the weight of imports have risen by over 125 per cent and 114 per cent respectively.
• In 2006, we imported 60,000 tonnes just of Christmas decorations.

China has become the 'environmental laundry' for the Western world. China is increasingly blamed for its levels of pollution in general, and its rising greenhouse gas emissions in particular. But it is demand from countries like the UK which leads to smoke from Chinese factories and power plants entering the atmosphere. Because China's energy mix is more fossil-fuel intensive than those of Europe, Japan or the USA, it also means that outsourcing to China creates more greenhouse gas emissions for each product made.

"As China is increasingly attacked because of its rising pollution levels, people overlook two important issues. First, per person, China's greenhouse gas emissions are a fraction of those in Europe and the United States. Second, a closer look at trade flows reveals that a large share of China's rising emissions is due to the dependence of the rest of the world on exports from China - a Chinadependence," adds lead author and nef policy director, Andrew Simms,

"There is also the fact that a lot of heavy industry has simply relocated to China from apparently cleaner, richer nations - when our major retailers scour the world for the cheapest production costs, the result is that more greenhouse gases get pumped into the atmosphere for every product we buy. Because of the way that data on carbon emissions gets collected at the international level, this has the effect of 'carbon laundering' economies like those of Britain and the USA," he concludes.