For a variety of reasons, rich countries are more easily able to cut per capita carbon emissions. These include both better access to cleaner energy sources and the fact it is more politically feasible to cut emissions in a rich country than in a poor country. In poor and middle-income countries, voters and residents tend to live closer to subsistence levels and the cost of cutting emissions could be the difference between a steady food supply and malnutrition. It could mean a real cut to the availability of reliable medical services.
Proportionally speaking, a cut to carbon emissions in a wealthy country will rarely lead to such stark choices.
So, if we want to see where carbon emissions are likely to grow the most — or at least shrink the least — in coming decades we should be looking outside the wealthy West.
When it comes to total emissions, China has taken the top spot over the past decade, although as recently as 2000, China’s total carbon emissions were lower than that of both the United States and the EU.
But Chinese carbon emissions are now double that of the US. As of 2014, China produced 10.2 billion metric tons, while the US produced 5.2 billion metric tons.
Source: CO2 emissions, (metric tons per capita) via the World Bank; totals calculated using population data via World Bank.
As astute readers are likely, to note, however, the US has far fewer people than does China. So, not surprisingly, we find that the US still leads in per capital carbon emissions:
Source: CO2 emissions, (metric tons per capita) via the World Bank.
The differences generally reflect the standard of living. For example, the US, Canada, and Australia, are among the countries with the highest number of vehicles per capita, and with the most living space per capita. The EU has noticeably lower carbon emissions because living standards are lower there, especially in Southern Europe and areas of central Europe that were once behind the Iron Curtain. Moreover, much of Europe has less extreme climate extremes as North America, meaning less of a need for cooling and heating.
However, because wealthier countries can more easily afford cleaner-burning fuels and alternative fuels, the largest decreases in carbon emissions (over this time frame) have come in the Wealthiest countries:
Source: CO2 emissions, (metric tons per capita) via the World Bank.
I should note, however, that the measures of decline in the rich world come out a little differently when we measure “decline from peak.” In the US, emissions peaked in 1973 at 22.5 metric tons per capita. In Australia, emissions didn’t peak until 2008 (at 18.2 per cap metric tons), and emissions have dropped 15 percent since then. In Canada, per cap emissions peaked in 2003 at 17.4 metric tons, and have fallen 12.3 percent since then. In the US, emissions peaked The EU’s per cap emissions peaked in 1979 at 10.5, and have dropped 36 percent since then.
It a totally different story in the developing world, however, where carbon emissions increased 179 percent in China, and 77 percent in India.
As we saw above, because of its high population, China has already overtaken every other country in terms of total CO2 emissions. As a proportion of global carbon emissions, China is closing in on 30 percent of the global total, while the US has now dropped below fifteen percent:
Source: “Share of annual CO2 emissions” from Our World In Data.
Thus, the future is one in which talk about global-warming policy will only mean anything if it focuses on the developing world, and especially on China and India.
So far, however, these countries have shown little interest in abiding by the Rich World’s proposed mandates for the developing world. China won’t even talk about capping emissions before 2030, and as recently as 2015, India was saying it won’t be cutting emissions for another thirty years. India has softened its predictions since then, but still refuses to commit to cutting use of coal, and won’t accept legally-binding emissions goals.
The rich world has proposed sending the developing world huge subsidies for cutting emissions, but the developing world has learned from experience, and is unlikely to base national policy around a promise of future action from first-world regimes.
Thus, when asked about how to get China to commit to climate goals, activists like Michael Bloomberg appear to be at a loss .
.@MikeBloomberg tells @FiringLineShow that China’s leader is addressing pollution to satisfy constituents & secure his political future.
— Firing Line with Margaret Hoover (@FiringLineShow) September 27, 2019
“The Communist Party wants to stay in power in China and they listen to the public,” he says. pic.twitter.com/B9SoAXJwrM
Bloomberg claims “the public” will demand changes, but as Foreign Policy magazine has recently reported: “There is almost no daily public concern about climate change in China. The issue is fairly muted in Chinese-language media beyond coverage of Beijing’s own programs, and there is little individual concern about electricity usage or air travel.”
As mentioned by Bloomberg, the average Chinese person is concerned about air pollution in Chinese cities, which is quite bad by modern rich-world standards. The regime is more likely to take action in that regard, but that can be done with far less impact on total carbon emissions than the global climate planners would like to see.
But it’s not nothing. After all, local concerns over air pollution do have a meaningful effect on carbon emissions over time, because cleaner burning fuel has the benefit of reducing the sort of “smog” that directly impacts daily lives.
The problem — from the climate activists’ perspective — is that this is likely to take place over a time frame much longer than the next decade or so. This is because the Chinese also have to take into account the impact further environmental regulation has on standards of living. In China, where the standard of living is much lower, cuts to that standard of living are far painful than they are in the developed world.
Like everyone else, though, the Chinese and the Indians want a city skyline without smog, and they want clean rivers. But they also want abundant energy. The answer lies in technological progress, which also has the added benefit of bringing cleaner water and air.
But while standards of living in the developing world remain so far below those of the rich world, this is likely to pose a political problem for any efforts to impose emissions restrictions on countries that haven’t yet had their chance to get rich, too.
