The UK appears to be a leader in curbing greenhouse gas emissions. Unlike many other developed countries, it has already met its Kyoto obligations & defined ambitious, legally binding targets for the future. This achievement has been called into question as it ignores rapidly changing patterns of production & international trade. Structural decomposition analysis (SDA) are used to investigate drivers behind annual changes in CO2 emission from UK consumption between 1992-2004. In contrast with previous SDA-based studies, we apply the decomposition to a global, multiregional input-output model (MRIO), which accounts for UK imports from all regions & uses region specific production structures & CO2 intensities. We find that improvements from "domestic" changes in efficiency & production structure led to a 148Mt reduction in CO2 emissions, which only partially offsets emission increases of 217 Mt from changes in the global supply chain and from growing consumer demand. Recent emission reductions achieved in the UK are not merely a reflection of a greening of the domestic supply chain, but also of a change in the international division of labor in the global production of goods and services.
