Carbon footprints don't lie: World's richest 10% release 50% of its CO2
Subodh Varma
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Person In Richest Half Emits 17.6 Tons CO2, That In Poorest 50% Just 1.57 Tons
As the rich countries of the West lock horns with the developing world at Paris on the question of who will cut how much carbon emissions, a new study by Oxfam shows the jaw dropping chasm between emissions of the two sides. The richest 10% people of the world are responsible for almost half of all global carbon emissions while the poorest 50% -some 3.5 billion people -cause just 10% of it in one year.Here's another way of looking at this: a person belonging to the poorest half of the world emits just 1.57 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year while a person belonging to the richest 10% emits 17.6 tonnes -over 11 times more. If you compare the richest 10% with the poorest 10%, the gap is mind-boggling. The carbon footprint of the richest is 60 times larger than that of the poorest at a global level.
Why is this relevant to the Paris talks? Because in the smoke and mirrors of global negotiations, the commitment of the rich countries to their own lifestyles -and its humongous carbon footprint -is so entrenched they are unable to give it up, forcing changes on the str uggling poor of the developing world. This is all the more unjust because it is the developing world that is going to bear the brunt of extreme climate change effects, as a recent World Bank study of 52 nations showed.
Oxfam has made these calculations for consumption rather than production as is normally done. In this way , what happens is that if a soft drink made in China is consumed in the US, the emissions in production, transportation etc are counted in US. This is more logical as the reason for making the drink was a demand in US, as was its ultimate destiny . The vast majority of the world's richest 10% stay in OECD countries -North America, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. In fact, a third of them stay in the US. So the culpability of rich countries in emissions is reaffirmed, with the additional information that it is their profligate consumerism that is driving emissions.
Where does India fit into this? Oxfam's estimates reveal that per person emissions of India's richest 10% are about 2 tonnes, just a quarter of even US' poorest 50%, whose emissions are 8.57 tonnes. If you compare the poorest half of the population of India and the US, the contrast is even starker. India's poorest 50% have a mere 0.42 tonnes per capita emission while for the US it is 8.57 tonnes a year, over 20 times more.
This incredible equation shows the wide and deep chasm between consumption-driven emissions in the first world and the third world. It also shows the locked down nature of the rich economies where even the poor cause more emissions than the rich of the third world.
So, what does it mean for the climate change negotiations in Paris? While it is a global crisis and everybody has to chip in, the magnitude of the problem is directly linked to the lifestyle choices and economic trajectories of the rich countries. Without even going into the question of historical responsibility, even on the basis of current emissions, the scale of emissions from the richer bloc is orders of magnitude more than India and other third world countries. Hence, the richer bloc of countries need to not only make deeper cuts, they also need to pay more to compensate for the damage caused by climatic changes in the third world.
Source: Times of India, 10-12-2015
Why is this relevant to the Paris talks? Because in the smoke and mirrors of global negotiations, the commitment of the rich countries to their own lifestyles -and its humongous carbon footprint -is so entrenched they are unable to give it up, forcing changes on the str uggling poor of the developing world. This is all the more unjust because it is the developing world that is going to bear the brunt of extreme climate change effects, as a recent World Bank study of 52 nations showed.
Oxfam has made these calculations for consumption rather than production as is normally done. In this way , what happens is that if a soft drink made in China is consumed in the US, the emissions in production, transportation etc are counted in US. This is more logical as the reason for making the drink was a demand in US, as was its ultimate destiny . The vast majority of the world's richest 10% stay in OECD countries -North America, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. In fact, a third of them stay in the US. So the culpability of rich countries in emissions is reaffirmed, with the additional information that it is their profligate consumerism that is driving emissions.
Where does India fit into this? Oxfam's estimates reveal that per person emissions of India's richest 10% are about 2 tonnes, just a quarter of even US' poorest 50%, whose emissions are 8.57 tonnes. If you compare the poorest half of the population of India and the US, the contrast is even starker. India's poorest 50% have a mere 0.42 tonnes per capita emission while for the US it is 8.57 tonnes a year, over 20 times more.
This incredible equation shows the wide and deep chasm between consumption-driven emissions in the first world and the third world. It also shows the locked down nature of the rich economies where even the poor cause more emissions than the rich of the third world.
So, what does it mean for the climate change negotiations in Paris? While it is a global crisis and everybody has to chip in, the magnitude of the problem is directly linked to the lifestyle choices and economic trajectories of the rich countries. Without even going into the question of historical responsibility, even on the basis of current emissions, the scale of emissions from the richer bloc is orders of magnitude more than India and other third world countries. Hence, the richer bloc of countries need to not only make deeper cuts, they also need to pay more to compensate for the damage caused by climatic changes in the third world.
Source: Times of India, 10-12-2015
