Written question asked by Lindsay Roy (Labour) on Thursday, 9 February 2012, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 20 February 2012. It was answered by Lord Benyon (Conservative) on Monday, 20 February 2012 on behalf of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

River Forth: Bridges

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will estimate the carbon footprint resulting from importing steel from China for the construction of the new Forth Bridge.

Answer: DEFRA does not hold data on the carbon footprint of the replacement Forth crossing. However, a DEFRA research report published in 2011, focussed on understanding the geographical sources of greenhouse gas emissions associated with UK trade flows. This showed that in 2004 China was the source of around 5% of emissions associated with UK consumption of non-ferrous metals (iron and steel), a total of around 3 kilo tonnes of CO2 equivalent. Ongoing research work will update these figures with more recent data, and provide a high level analysis of the UK national carbon dioxide footprint, covering 131 product groups and all final demand categories on annual basis from 2011 to 2016.

Secondary information