Carbon emissions are the greatest environmental threat facing the planet and have been subject to ever more stringent regulation in recent decades. The UK, EU, and even the notoriously lagging US have made significant strides in changing the direction of their emissions, apparently bending down curves that had strained ever upwards for centuries. Yet the majority of these gains are a fallacy: a product of richer nations diminishing their share of global industry and ‘outsourcing’ carbon-intensive processes to the global South.