Al Gore’s Nobel Prize speech, as reported by the NY Times:
…he singled out the United States and China—the world’s largest emitters of carbon dioxide—for failing to meet their obligations in mitigating emissions. They should “stop using each other’s behavior as an excuse for stalemate,” he said.
Much as I love him, Gore’s sentiment here is just not fair—to China. There is simply no reasonable comparison between the two nations. We’re not equally responsible for the problem. Not even close.
Considering the last 115 years—you know, the period that caused climate change — North America is reponsible for more than 3 times as much global warming pollution as China, North Korea, Mongolia, and Vietnam put together.
And that’s not the half of it.
Not only are we North Americans vastly wealthier, but on a per capita basis we bear far more responsibility for the climate pollution that’s already in the sky.
This chart compares historical carbon emissions with the number of residents alive today. The North American legacy has been vastly more damaging to the atmosphere than Asia’s. So, as individuals living today in what Gore rightly calls “an era of consequences,” we bear an outsize share of the responsibility.
By the way, country-by-country emissions data was not readily available—I’ll tease it apart later—but I think the regional comparison makes my point adequately.
Carbon emissions data from Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Population data from CIA World Factbook.
Arie v.
Elizabeth Kolbert also makes this point in her Climate Series articles and book. If you consider the carbon % in the atmosphere as a cake, we’ve already had far more than our fair share. The problem I see with Gore’s approach is it makes it sound like the effects are not culmulative and this may misinform the masses. On the other hand, playing the blame game can be bad politics. When I’ve seen the topic of reparations comes up here or in Japan there has always been a backlash. Even from a legal perspective you’d need to prove the US knew it’s carbon emissions were harmful to to other nations at the time to prove negligence.Personally I like Gore’s approach to single out the largest *current* emitters of carbon dioxide and not get caught up in arguments and counter arguments over the Industrial Revolution and it’s consequences. (I.e. Yes, we warmed the planet, but look we also erradicated polio and TB.) It’s simply not likely to motivate.
Dan
Certainly China will be emitting lots and lots of goop into the atmosphere in the future. Why not try to ensure that their emissions don’t push us over 450 ppmv CO2 in the atmosphere? Certainly crying over spilt milk isn’t going to reduce China’s emissions. Sure, we put a good chunk of the 100 ppmv into the atmosphere, but China is catching up fast.
Gary Durning
Yeah it looks lopsided because the graphs are measuring 115 years. I think more realistic graphs would be in a 5-10 year time span. To reduce climate change, you must look at the major players today.
Morgan Ahouse
I would think that aiming for the best policy options asks that we look at anticipated emissions. Similarly, understanding political momentum and other social issues asks that we look at past emissions.
morrison_jay
Look back 100+ years, at cumulative emmissions, is useless. China does not “deserve” to pollute as much as others have. China cannot have a credit to pollute as much as we have for the past 100 years.If we adopt that approach then we are doomed. We need to all recognize that this is a big room (the planet) and we have to exist inside of it together going forward.Gore has the right approach. Your article has the wrong approach.
fleted
I feel that it is important to remember that we are each responsible for our own actions. We should try and reduce our individual emmissions to the same levels as the Chinese. By all means do what we can to make the rest of our community act in the same way. It is reasonable to hope that the people of China on seeing our actions will try to hold their emissions also.
influent
At what point does Gore say they are equal?? (Not that I mind your rant or your dislike of American energy use.)
ash_robb
This topic might also consider per capita incomes, which may reflect an economy’s ability, and flexibility, to stimulate technological and transformational change to reduce emissions? Deriving responsibility by comparing developing and developed economys’ ‘current’ emissions seems politically narrow minded and ethically unfair. Unfortunately we may have to wait another 12 months before seeing some US responsibility on this issue. In the meantime, perhaps the Egyptians will ask for concessions for inventing the wheel…
Jon Morgan
I like Gary’s comment; I’d like to see graphs with much shorter and more recent time spans.I’d also note that the prominent Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki consistently says Canadians emit more greenhouse gases per capita than Americans. But there are 300 million of us and somewhere around 34 million of them.
Dan
No graphs, but you can make your own. Note the rate of increase of China’s (#2 global emitter) emissions vs US. Pick your time period.Gore is not wrong. Not wrong at all. Unless you think it is OK to pollute now because others polluted in the past, are polluting now, and refuse to go along with the rest of the planet to do something about future pollution.