It was big new when China passed up the United States as the world's top emitter of carbon dioxide. However, a new study says that developed countries have as much to do with China's emissions as the country itself.

On Sunday, I blogged about SEcretary of State Clinton's trip to China, during which she encouraged cooperation in the area of clean technology and emissions reduction. This research suggests that these goals may be more complicated she let on.

A yet-to-be published report from the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo (CICERO) finds that although China's CO2 output increased 45% from 2002-2005, half was due to export production, a majority of which was bound for western countries.

Although the country is developing at a ferocious pace, the blame for emissions doesn't fall on China's households, which increased consumption by only 7% during that time. Behind exports, China's 2nd largest source of emissions is capital formation -- mostly as construction.

This brings up one of the big trojan horses in the international climate agreement process: carbon leakage. The global warming treaties advanced thus far do not take into account emissions caused by countries who manufacture goodies for American and European markets. In essence, when developed nations import HDTV's and laptops, they export emissions.

Fortunately, CICERO's Glen Peters doesn't think we need to scrap our current treaty frameworks. He recommends designing provisions similar to tax policies saying, "For example we could design carbon taxes in a similar way to value-added taxation which covers imported products. In that way the consumer would pay for the emissions caused by his or her consumption."

So, essentially, your new MacBook Air would have an emissions tax added to the sticker price for any parts that were manufactured overseas. Nobody said solving climate wouldn't come with a little sacrifice.