A new study has found that the release of climate-warming emissions clogging skies in East Asia is being driven by consumption of manufactured goods in Western Europe, North America and Oceania.

Researchers looked at a number of aerosols (solid and liquid particles suspended in air) created through manufacturing and energy production, such as black carbon, which absorb solar radiation and warm the atmosphere -- an effect known as "radiative forcing.”

The aerosols only stick in the air for days to weeks, so they are more likely to be detected near where they are produced.

McGill University atmospheric scientist Yi Huang, a co-author of the work published in Nature Geoscience, said the study revealed “a strong, yet little-recognized link among consumption, trade and environmental and climate consequences.”

“Although global pollution is largely generated in developing countries, it is foreign demand that drives much of the goods production and associated pollution,” Huang said.

In other words, wealthier nations' may be underestimating the impact they are having on climate change in developing countries like China.

The study’s authors suggest developing countries may need to find ways to make consumers in wealthier regions pay to improve emissions standards where goods they consume are produced.

The research was published just days after China and the U.S. -- the world’s two largest economies and largest climate-change contributors -- ratified the Paris climate change agreement.

Under the agreement, the U.S. has targeted an emissions cut of at least 26 per cent compared to 2005 levels by 2025.

Fast-growing China has agreed that its emissions will start declining by 2030.

Canada, meanwhile, intends to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.