The challenge facing the world's biggest polluters
The clock is ticking in the race to agree a new treaty to cut the emissions that cause global warming. Michael McCarthy names and shames the offenders who must mend their ways
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1. China: 6,018 million tonnes CO2
In June 2007 China released a three-pronged national climate change programme, the first by any developing country. Its aims are to control greenhouse gas emissions, stimulate research and development, and raise public awareness. It has a renewable energy target (15 per cent of total energy by 2020), an ambitious plan for energy efficiency (20 per cent reduction by 2010), and a plan to increase forest coverage rate to 20 per cent by 2010. But no emissions reductions target as yet.
The 20 worst offenders
In three weeks' time in Bonn, the international community will begin the negotiations leading up to December's United Nations climate change meeting in Copenhagen, which, it is hoped, will produce a new climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol. If the world is to check the march of global warming before it is too late, it is increasingly clear that this meeting must lead to agreement on worldwide cuts in carbon dioxide (CO2), the principal greenhouse gas – emissions of which from industry, transport and deforestation are responsible for causing the atmosphere to overheat.
Here we present a unique table of the world's 20 biggest CO2 emitters, with details of their economies and populations, and more importantly, what steps they each are already taking – if any – to cut back their emissions. Some points stand out. China has now overtaken the United States as the world's biggest polluter; its carbon emissions have more than doubled in a decade, and with its recent growth rate of nearly 10 per cent, could do so again, depending on the length and depth of the world recession.
India, now the fourth biggest polluter, is also rapidly increasing its emissions, and is increasing its population of 1.15 billion people far faster than any other country in the table; soon its human numbers will be on a par with China's and its emissions following suit. But neither country has set an emissions reduction target since, as developing countries, they feel they should be allowed to continue growing to relieve poverty (India is vocal on this point). Also, as the supplementary table makes clear, if their emissions are treated on a per capita basis, India is the lowest emitter by far, and China is fourth from bottom, instead of top.
However, some developing countries are taking on emissions targets – Mexico and South Africa stand out – while Brazil has set up a programme to save the Amazon.
Among the developed countries, the member states of the European Union (including Britain) are taking the lead, with firm commitments to reduce CO2 in the medium term. Other high-emitting rich nations, such as Japan, Canada and Australia, have given themselves less taxing targets or have not yet set out their plans in detail. After eight years of inaction and obstructionism under President George Bush, the US, now the second biggest polluter, is back among the climate change coalition of the willing, and President Obama has set out the targets he would like to aim at. However, he may be held back in his ambition by Congress.
If we are to name any laggards, we should point to the oil-exporting countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, who are unhappy at the whole idea of cutting carbon and have done very little about it, and also to Russia (the third biggest polluter) and Ukraine, who similarly have shown little appetite for action.
If a workable deal is reached in Copenhagen it will have to involve the developed nations taking on new ambitious targets; but it will also have to mean the developing countries starting to cut back their own CO2, in return for large amounts of developed country aid. In essence, it will be a deal between the US and China, with the rest of the world following. But it is by no means certain that a deal can be put together. Look at our table and you will see just how different are the situations of the different countries in emissions, wealth and population. Bringing them all into a treaty that really means something will be a labour of Hercules – beginning in Bonn, in three weeks' time.
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Comments
All these countries are incredibly rich in solar power, which they could export to countries that have less abundant sun.
With modern technology you can harvest the solar power effectively AND transport it with acceptable losses over great distances.
If I measure correctly the distance between Iran and Moskva it's less than 3000 km. With HVDC cables that means a mere 9% loss. That should guarantee Russia all the power it needs.
Saudi Arabia could start large-scale production of hydrogen, irrigation of desert areas.
Regarding developing countries. They would serve their own future better by abolishing fossil fuels before huge amounts of infrastructure have been built and suddenly the stuff gets scarcer and more expensive.
It seems to be OUR duty to show them the way. However, it seems that most western politicians are stuck in some kind of neo-colonialistic psychosis and are unable to act in accordance with warning signals from large groups of scientists.
Another argument is that it is immensily unethical to use up a resource which humanity might need later, when circumstances have changed or new carbon-based technologies require huge amounts of fossil fuels. Especially because technology exists to replace fossils fuels completely.
Yet another point is that our evolution is a carbon-based phenomenon. Anyone believing that increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere won't hit back at us in some kind of way is either very naive or utterly stupid. Messing with life is a dangerous game. Sure, nourishment for plants, but indirectly also for virusses, bacteria, algea, insects...
And finally, when you know a resource is not renewable, and you know that there are viable alternatives, you would want to convert to alternative energy sources LONG before prices would jump.
Oh, yes, and finally, finally. If we really do want to help the developing countries reaching a higher level of prosperity, we better do so in a way that is beneficial for both ourselves and the rest of mankind. I cannot possibly imagine a terrorist stealing a solar plant and making a bomb out of it.
Humanity has only one choice that might lead the entire world to a better future: renewables and NOW!
Water undegoes phase changes IN RESPONSE TO TEMPERATURE and can therfore never be a prime driver of temperature.
Please get your facts right before criticising others who are better informed than you are.
It is utter madness to form policy on climate and the environment based on flawed computer models.
As Carol from Little Britain says, "Computer Says No!"
Wealth and Poverty: Incomes of the Poor and the Rich will continue to rise exponentially.
Health: Mortality due to climate is set to increase from 0.3% to 0.5%. Lifestyle at 20% will still be the greatest killer.
Environment and Agriculture: Agricultural productivity will rise by at least 200% to the effect that more land can be set aside for conservation of biodiversity.
Is this new world something to fear? No!
Is there a table linked to this article?
If so, where is it?
The Grauniad - 10 March 2009 - "Carbon emissions creating acidic oceans not seen since dinosaurs"
The Indie - 09 March 2009 - "Carbon cuts 'only give 50/50 chance of saving planet'"
And, most pertinent to this article:
The Guardian - 23 February 2009 - "West blamed for rapid increase in China's CO2"
(The question is one of measurment: what you make, or what you buy?)
The New Scientist's editorial (28 February 2009) was so concerned about the world's failure to cut CO2 emissions that it advocated "geoengineering" solutions, such as deflecting the sun's heat, ocean fertilisation, 'cloud seeding' and the usual suspects such as carbon capture and storage.
We're not told how many CO2s would be emitted in setting up such huge projects.
More alarmingly, is the prospect of moving 'at risk populations' to cooler, wetter, parts of the globe where - presumably - there's no host population to object to migration on such an epic scale.
It all illustrates the scale of disaster ahead.
Negative responses to these warnings come in two main forms: denial, and pretence.
Denial is understandable: cognitive dissonance. "I don't want to believe it's true, therefore it can't be."
Imagine being a wealthy inhabitant of Roman Londinium, circa 350 AD, and being told the Romans will be gone in sixty years, and their lifestyle will vanish with them.
Pretension is even worse. Most corporate advertisers have caught on to the need to be seen to be "doing something about it".
Shell's full-page ads - such as the one page 21 on New Scientist (28 February 2009) - demonstrate the phenomenon.
It claims to be investing in biofuels, wind power, and solar cells, which may well be true, but TV ads suggest more attention to extracting difficult to reach oil fields in the Arctic, which does rather counteract the spin.
By the same token, Sky's vans carry the claim that company is "carbon neutral", which presumably means News Corporation is now Greenpeace-friendly.
Then there's political pretension, which demands a major article in itself.
On 12 January 2009, The Guardian warned that the low carbon buildings programme is to close in June, and has, in any case been the victim of under-funding.
Ed Miliband, New Labour's sop to climate change, "told the Guardian a "popular mobilisation" was needed to help politicians push through an
agreement to limit carbon emissions in the face of concerns about the economy". (08 December 2008)
You'll have noticed that Brown does not appeal for "people power" to help him force through unpopular projects like bailing out incompetent bankers.
Finally, the government's support for aviation - and especially Heathrow - demonstrates a lack of concern about climate change which borders on the sociopathic.
Despite clear evidence of the damage which aviation does to the environment, ministers had the effrontery to claim that vehicles, not aircraft, are the problem.
In an article entitled 'Green Sky Thinking' (24 February 2007) New Scientist demolished this line of argument:
"Around 85,000 commercial flights take off each day, and this number is predicted to double by 2050.
"[There is] a widening disparity between the air industry's growth - over 5 per cent annually - and the projected improvement in jetlines fuel efficiency, which is nearer 2 per cent each year.
"... If the industry wants to grow but grow green, it will have to make ... little short of a design revolution.
" ... A single flight across the Atlantic can guzzle about 60,000 litres - more fuel than an average motorist uses in 50 years of driving - generating around 140 tonnes of carbon dioxide, along with 750 kilograms of [Nitrogen Oxides Emissions].
" ... The net result ... is that pollution from high-flying jets is up to four times as damaging ... as the same amount released from chimneys and exhaust pipes at ground level ... "
Nearly five years ago James Lovelock warned that we are "at an ecological Munich" - "We are at war with the Earth itself" - and five years on we are effectively no further forward.
John Donne's view of humanity has been overturned - we now think, and are encouraged to think - that we are sovereign islands.
We are not.
The funeral bell, as he rightly said, "tolls for thee".
The evidence of graves under the permafrost in Greenland prove that temperatures there were much higher than today during the medieval warming period. Tht period came to an end very abruptly and was followed by a little ice age.
So there is nothing unique about the latest warming rate but the trend has gone and we are now informed by the, usually alarmist, US NOAA that global warming is on hold and we are in for a decadal cooling period. Better get some warm clothes and put more coal on the fire.
The only emission target that will work as far as prevernting runaway global warming is concerned is zero, i.e. a return to normality from the absurd manner in which humans have been living for the past 200 or so years. As long as humans continue to remove sequestered carbon from underground and convert it into carbon dioxide, everything will continue to get worse at an increasing pace.
However, we know that no government will ever vote for normality. That would be like turkeys voting for a Chistmas dinner with turkey as the main. Therefore everything will continue to get worse and there will be many more meaningless talkfests, until the entire system breaks down.
The current so-called credit crunch is the first stage of the breakdown.
Tomhmacf lists headline after headline from presumably what he considers to be reputable sources but for goodness sake they are written by journo's selling their newspapers and since when did facts get in the way of a good story.
Indeed the the first image shown in the set in this very article shows a Power Station Cooling towers that produce no one single gram of C02. The 'smoke' issued is nothing more harmful than water vapour but there are even some people who want to believe that is going to cause doomsday!
There is clear evidence for those that want to see it that the planet is in the coolest time in its history and oddly enough mankind has been living on the planet for hundreds of thousands of years through all climate variations including severe ice ages.
Attempting to predict the climate using data from a few decades is about as sensible as trying to predict the share prices next year using data from a few hours of today trading.
For goodness sake despite all the mass of modern technology and years of so called experience, the Met Office cannot predict a few days ahead with the slightest accuracy except on the rarest of occasions, so how is it that predictions of decades hence are so reliable?
CO2 comprises of less than 0.04% of the atmosphere, so if it doubles that will mean 0.08% of the atmosphere.
CO2 does mask heat but no one is quoting figures on just how much heat is masked by how much CO2 the only figures you get are the 'tonnes belched into the air' by this or that. Highly emotive but factually impotent.
But then facts don't win funding or political favours or even honours do they?
Request for more information - I've looked at the list and you don't seem to have given the figures for the following countries - South Korea and Italy - could you add them in for completeness ?
many thanks
Carole
c.birtwhistle@leedsmet.ac.uk