World is Green

In the current climate change discussions, China and India raise red flags everywhere. The general points are that they are the fastest growing developing countries and hence, their emissions need to be decreased or the growth of emissions needs to be decreased. In fact, Australia and the US claim to not signing the Kyoto Protocol due to the lack of emission reduction targets on China and India.

China and India on the other hand claim their per capita emissions, their poverty and the need for economic development as the drivers for not accepting to targets for CO2 reduction.

One common reason suggested for the worry is that China will eclipse the United States as the leading greenhouse gas emitter soon . The developed countries are looking into the future. However, if you look at the past, it is clear who bears the responsibility. A good way to understand this is the cumulative emissions of countries from 1900 to 2002.

The linked graph shows the cumulative CO2 emissions from 1900 to 2002.

Writing on the logic of doing it, the author suggests:

It does make sense to look at the sum of all CO2 emissions because the lifetime of the greenhouse gases like CO2 in the atmosphere is between 50 and 200 years. The current global warming is an effect of all greenhouse gases put in the atmosphere during the last 100 years, global warming is not just caused by the greenhouse gases emitted this year or last year! This is also one of the reasons why immediate action is required to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, because the effects of the greenhouse gases will last for about 100 years.

A better way to understand the issue is to concentrate on the Top 10 producers of all time.

The US is responsible for 41% of all the emissions for the last hundred years produced by the top 10 countries. China only 11%. India 3%. This puts things in perspective.

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