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Comparative worldwide emissions (2003)

      NB: Includes international aviation and shipping, excludes land use change. Source: World Resources Institute

      A country’s greenhouse gas emissions depend on the size of its economy, the types of industry it has and the kinds of energy it uses. Demand for heating and air conditioning are also key factors: rich countries with hot summers use lots of energy for air-conditioning; cold countries use more for heating.

      China has become a major emitter of greenhouse gases only in the past 20 years while the United States and the UK have been pumping out carbon dioxide throughout the past century. And it is the total quantity of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that is driving global warming, not just the annual amount added to this total. So it’s the developed countries that are mostly responsible for the problem.

      seven people who can make a difference

      1 The President of the United States

      2 The President of China

      3 The British Prime Minister

      4 The Mayor of London

      5 Your boss

      6 Your council leader

      7 You

      comparing carbon footprints

      A country’s real contribution to the total amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere depends not just on the energy it uses, but also on the way it uses land and the stuff it consumes. The amount of land being farmed will affect emissions of methane and nitrous oxide as well as the amount of carbon dioxide held by the soil. (Forests help remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.) Goods imported from overseas also have their own carbon footprint and use up natural resources.

      To get a clear picture of a country’s overall footprint, then, we need to look at what it is consuming, including imports. The Global Footprint Network uses information on all of these areas to estimate each country’s total impact on the planet in terms of environmental cost, and has come up with a measure it calls global hectares. Using this measure, humanity’s global footprint is put at 13.9 billion global hectares. That’s 24 per cent more than the natural resources available on Earth. This is a problem: we are exceeding the planet’s ability to absorb our impact.

       Global footprints (global hectares/person, 2003)

      UK emissions

      Half a billion tonnes. That’s how much carbon dioxide the UK emits each year. Some 60.2 million people live in the UK – that’s just less than one in every 100 people in the world; but in 2005 our emissions were around 2 per cent of the global total – double our fair share.

      In fact the true total is even higher: 556 million tonnes is the official figure, but that doesn’t include our share of emissions from international aviation and shipping; nor the emissions created by all the products we buy from overseas.

      Add to that the UK’s history and the footprint gets heavier still. We have been pumping out carbon dioxide since the Industrial Revolution. It is this historical record that leads many to argue that greenhouse gas emissions are a problem created by the developed countries, including the UK, and to insist that it is the old industrial world’s responsibility to reduce its emissions first. Richer countries, particularly the United States, have been reluctant to cut emissions before developing nations do, claiming it will damage their economies. This has been a major barrier to international agreements to tackle climate change.

      the need to cut

      Politicians may argue about who is responsible for cutting just how much carbon dioxide; but to keep within the 2°C threshold, globally we need to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide massively by 2050. This looks like a tall order – but it is possible.

      Where can the cuts come from? And what difference will they make to the way we live?

      is it all about population growth?

      Some people argue that tackling climate change means doing something about the world’s growing population: the Earth’s resources are limited and there simply is no longer enough to go around if we go on consuming at this rate; our survival, some say, depends on keeping our numbers down.

      The global population has grown more than six-fold just over 200 years to around 6.6 billion in 2007. It is expected to stabilise at around 9.2 billion by mid-century. But the countries with the fastest growing populations are among those who have done the least to affect climate change

      Carbon dioxide emissions per person are far higher in the richest countries of the world such as the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia and the UK. By contrast, many countries in Africa have per capita emissions that are negligible in comparison – less than one-hundredth the level. Many countries in Latin America have per capita emissions that are only around one-tenth those of the richest countries.

      Global population is not the root of the problem: it is the rapid use of energy and natural resources by the richer and fossil-fuel dependent economies that is putting pressure on the planet.

      Carbon-dating climate change – a timeline

      End of the Permian period (251 million years ago). Geological evidence suggests carbon dioxide concentrations were four times higher than today. Much of Central Europe and the southern United States was desert, and seas were 20 metres higher. Methane releases from the sea beds are thought to have wiped out many living things. Some estimates suggest that 95 per cent of life on Earth was eradicated.

      Start of the Holocene (10,000 years ago). End of the last ice age and the beginning of a relatively stable climate.

      Medieval Warm Period (900-1200 AD). Relative warming in the Northern Hemisphere, with wine grown in the UK and droughts in North America. Temperatures in Europe are thought to have been 1°C -2°C warmer than at the start of the 20th century, but little evidence exists of warming on a global scale.

      1750-1800 Start of the Industrial Revolution and the use of coal to drive industry.

      1800 Start of the Anthropocene. According to some climate scientists, the stable period of the Holocene is coming to an end: humanity’s influence over the world’s climate is so great that the current age should be known as the Anthropocene.

      1896 Svante Arrhenius, a Swedish chemist, identifies the global warming properties of greenhouse gases, predicting that a doubling of carbon dioxide levels could raise temperatures by 5°C.

      1979 First World Climate Conference highlights concerns about levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (see p.54) is established.

      1987 The Brundtland Report, Our Common Future, makes the case for, and provides a definition of, sustainable development.

      1990 The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) publishes its first assessment; it says climate change is a concern and human activities are likely to be contributing.

      1992 Rio Earth Summit. World leaders meet in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to discuss the state of the planet, signing up to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

      1997 Kyoto Protocol. The first legally enforceable international treaty designed to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Signed by 141 countries, the Kyoto Protocol eventually comes into force in 2005.

      2001 Newly-elected US President George Bush refuses to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. ‘I oppose the

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