The UK's overall carbon footprint has grown by one-tenth in the past two decades, the Government's climate advisers have said.
The amount of emissions produced domestically – for example from transport, power, heating and manufacturing – has fallen by around 20%, the Committee on Climate Change said.
But increased imports of goods from overseas are pushing up the overall total of greenhouse gases for which the country is responsible, the comitte added.
Concerns that policies which aim to cut carbon emissions in the UK are pushing manufacturing overseas are, however, unfounded the report revealed.
The report also looked at the risk of pushing abroad industries that use large amounts of electricity.
It found the risk was already being managed by Government policies and funding to protect energy-intensive industries, which are expected to increase household electricity bills by just £5 by 2020.
The committee's chief executive, David Kennedy, said: "We would not expect to see industry in the UK closed down in the future because of low-carbon policies."
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