Man-made CO2 emissions 1965 -2012
Guest Essay by Ed Hoskins
The following calculations and graphics are based on information on worldwide national CO2 emission levels published by BP [i] in June 2013 for the period from 1965 up until 2012. The data is well corroborated by previous datasets published by the Guardian [ii] and Google up until 2009 [iii].
A logical grouping of nations with regard to attitudes to CO2 emissions control is used, as follows:
- The European Union, (including the UK), believers in action to combat Global Warming.
- United States of America.
- Japan, the former Soviet Union, Canada and Australia are developed nations, ignoring Kyoto.
- Korea, Iran, South Africa, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Indonesia and Taiwan: developing rapidly.
- China and Hong Kong: developing very rapidly.
- India: developing rapidly
- Rest of World (~160 Nations): developing rapidly.
In summary the CO2 emission and emissions per head position in 2012 was as follows:
CO2 emissions % population CO2/head tonnes
EU (27) 3,978 7.2% 7.9
USA 5,786 4.5% 18.3
JP RU CA AU 4,611 4.3% 15.1
KR IR ZA MX SA BR ID TW 4,252 11.3% 5.3
China HK 9,299 19.1% 6.9
India 1,823 17.3% 1.5
Rest of World (~160 Nations) 4,718 36.3% 1.8
World 34,466 4.9
These graphs of total CO2 emission history show that up until 2012:
- CO2 emissions from the developing world as a whole overtook the developed world in 2007 and are now ~42% higher.
- There has been a very rapid escalation of Chinese CO2 emissions since the year 2000[iv].
- China overtook the USA CO2 emissions in 2006, and by 2012 Chinese emissions were already ~60% greater than the USA, the escalation in Chinese CO2 emissions will continue.
- The stabilisation or reduction of emissions from developed economies. The USA, simply by exploiting shale gas for electricity generation, has already reduced its CO2 emissions by some 8% in the last year[v]. That alone has already had more CO2 emission reduction effect than the entire Kyoto protocol[vi].
- There is inexorable emissions growth from all the developing economies, from a low base.
- India has accelerating emissions[vii], growing substantially, from a low base.
So any CO2 emissions reduction made by the Developed Nations will be entirely negated by the increases in CO2 emissions from Developing Nations.
However probably more significant than the total CO2 emissions output is the comparison of the actual emissions/head for the various national groups.
- The EU(27) even with active legal measures have maintained a fairly level CO2 emission rate but have managed to reduce their CO2 emissions per head by ~29% since their peak in 1977. The recent downward trend is attributed to their declining economies.
- The USA has already reduced its CO2 emissions/head by ~32% since its peak in 1970
- Russia, Japan, Canada and Australia reduced emissions/head by ~17% since their peak in 1990
- The eight rapidly developing nations have shown consistent growth from a low base in 1965 at 5.6 times. They exceeded the world average CO2 emissions level in 1997
- China’s CO2 emissions/head have grown a further 140% since 2000. China overtook the world-wide average in 2003 and surpassed the rapidly developing nations in 2005.
- India’s CO2 emissions have grown by 4.7 times over the period and are now showing recent modest acceleration. That increasing rate is likely to grow substantially.
- The Rest of the World (~160 Nations), 36% of world population have grown CO2 emissions consistently but only by 2.6 times in the period, this group will be the likely origin of major future emissions growth.
- Overall average world-wide emissions/head have remained relatively steady but with early growth in the decade from 1965. It amounts to 1.6 times since 1965.
When the participating nations particularly EU(27) are compared with Chinese CO2 emissions/head an interesting picture arises:
- Chinese CO2 emissions at 6.7mt/head for its 1.3 billion population are already ~41% greater than the worldwide average. Those emissions are still growing fast.
- At 5.4mt/head, France, with ~80% nuclear electricity generation, has the lowest CO2. emission rates in the developed world and is at only ~12% above the world-wide average.
- China’s CO2 emissions/head exceeded France’s CO2 emissions/head in 2009.
- The UK at 7.2mt/head is only ~50% higher than the world-wide average and only about ~12% higher than China.
- Germany, one of the largest CO2 emitters in Europe, has emissions/head ~100% higher than the worldwide average and is still ~63% higher than China.
If CO2 emissions really were a concern to arrest Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming / Man-made Climate Change, these results show starkly the real advantage of using Nuclear power for electricity generation. This must question the Green attitudes in opposing Nuclear power. Following Fukushima, the German government position of eliminating nuclear power in a country with no earthquake risk and no chance of tsunamis should not be tenable.
In October 2010 Professor Richard Muller made the dilemma for all those who hope to control global warming by reducing CO2 emissions clear: in essence he said[viii]:
“the Developing World is not joining-in with CO2 emission reductions nor does it have any intention of doing so. The failure of worldwide action negates the unilateral action of any individual Nation”.
Professor Fritz Vahrenholt again re-emphasised this point in a July 2012 lecture at the Royal Society [ix] [x]. As CEO of RWE Innogy, the major German windpower supplier, Professor Vahrenholt pioneered Germany’s significant advances in renewable energy, especially in the development of wind power.
Previously Professor Vahrenholt had accepted the IPCC as the foundation of his understanding of mankind’s effect on climate change. However, as a trained chemist he re-examined IPCC reports in detail. He found many errors, inconsistencies and unsupported assertions. He has now entirely revised his position.
His diagram below shows the miniscule effect of the enormously costly efforts at decarbonisation in Germany, (die Energiewende), in comparison with the escalation of CO2 emissions from the rest of the world. The underdeveloped nations are bound to become progressively more industrialised and more intensive users of fossil fuels to power their development and widen their distribution of electricity.
The futility of the expenditure of vast resources on Green activities in Germany becomes clear. German actions with increasing risks to its energy security and the risk to the German economy as a whole, could only ever reduce Germany’s CO2 emissions by ~150,000,000 tonnes between 2006 and 2030. That would only amount to ~1/100 of the concomitant growth in other CO2 emissions from the developing world. According to Bjorn Lomborg the $100billion German investment in solar power alone, not including other renewable investments, can only reduce the onset of Global Warming by about 37 hours by the year 2100[xi].
This point is re-emphasised by comparing the annual growth in emissions from China and India with the full annual emissions from key European countries.
Professor Varhenholt is now convinced that it is nature and in particular the behaviour of the sun that is responsible for continually changing climate, and as he said as the final point of his RS lecture:
“This change can only develop first with a revolution of our minds.”
“It’s not mankind creating climate, it’s the sun stupid.”
Professor Varhenholt and his colleague Sebastian Luening have now published a best seller in Germany “Die Kalte Sonne”, the book now released in English as
“The Neglected Sun: Why the Sun Precludes Climate Catastrophe”[xii].
[i] http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle800.do?categoryId=9037130&contentId=7068669
[ii] http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jan/31/world-carbon-dioxide-emissions-country-data-co2#data
[iii] https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AonYZs4MzlZbdFF1QW00ckYzOG0yWkZqcUhnNDVlSWc&hl=en#gid=1
[iv] http://www.pbl.nl/en/news/pressreleases/2011/steep-increase-in-global-co2-emissions-despite-reductions-by-industrialised-countries
[v] http://www.c3headlines.com/2013/07/a-fracking-revolution-us-now-leads-world-in-co2-emission-reductions-.html
[vi]http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/project_syndicate/2012/09/thanks_to_fracking_u_s_carbon_emissions_are_at_the_lowest_levels_in_20_years_.html
[vii] http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-06-10/global-warming/29642669_1_kyoto-protocol-second-commitment-period-
[viii] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5m6KzDnv7k
[ix] http://www.thegwpf.org/vahrenholt-lecture/
[x] http://kaltesonne.de/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/vahrenholt-2012-annual-gwpf-lecture.pdf
[xi] http://www.lomborg.com/content/2013-03-germany-pays-billions-delay-global-warming-37-hours
[xii] http://notrickszone.com
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Slides available here: CO2 emmission data (PowerPoint PPTX)
Spreadsheet available here: CO2 emissions 12-13 (1)(Excel)
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because Europe is drowning in public debt, because the US can’t afford its entitlement programmes, because China can’t pay for its pensions, and because India needs infrastructure
We need a carbon tax so we can atone for our sin of living a healthy, prosperous and long life.
I reckon that after Richard’s comment, the whole comment section can be closed.
It’s simply another tax, to enable Governments to spend our money how they seem fit.
India, China, Brazil and South Africa have historically been in the position of making demands in the annual COPs, and their moral authority was exploited by UN agencies to fuel the negotiation process. As their own emissions grow however, they lose this position and it resembles the developed ‘North’ day by day.
The moral authority of the BASIC bloc in requiring the West to make emission cuts is disappearing. Consequently the momentum in the negotiations will dissipate as well.
Emerging powers, North–South relations and global climate politics. Hurrell and Sengupta. 2012
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-2346.2012.01084.x/abstract
Excellent charts. They really tell the story: the U.S. is decreasing its CO2 emissions, while China’s emissions are rising rapidly.
Therefore, there is no reason whatever for a “carbon” tax in the U.S. And China certainly is not going to impose a tax on itself. The whole [unstated] rationale for such a tax is to transfer the country’s wealth, via much higher prices, into the pockets of government bureaucrats and into the irresponsible, unaccountable and opaque UN coffewrs.
Anyone advocating a “carbon” tax is a treacherous fool or a self-serving tax-sucker riding the government’s gravy train — at the expense of hard working Americans.
Enough! We do not need more taxes. We need LOWER taxes!
Cutting carbon emissions very much reminds me of another left wing idea of a few decades ago, unilateral nuclear disarmament. The idea being that if we gave up our nuclear weapons the USSR would do the same. This was so unbelievably naive, the USSR would have annexed the whole of Europe. Likewise with carbon emissions and the developing world. China has an extremely strong economy, ours (UK) would be a lot stronger if we had the same cheap energy that China has rather than our self-flagellating reliance on expensive renewals. Of course China and India will not cut their carbon emissions, no-one in their right mind would, which just about sums up our political leaders.
@Adam
An increase in taxation is, I think, a reasonable starting point. Others disagree. In any case, the economic damage done by a tax is roughly proportional to the square of the level of the tax. Therefore, if you want to increase taxes, you should increase those taxes that are currently low (e.g., a carbon tax). If you want to keep taxes as they are, you should decrease those that are high (income, capital, consumption), and increase those that are low (carbon). If you want to reduce taxes, a carbon tax would still allow for deeper cuts in income taxes etc.
“Remind me again why the west needs a carbon tax?”
Carbon taxes? They’re here already.
Remind me again why do western electorates shun carbon dioxide taxes but get them anyway?
A. The UN agenda 21, to which all, most [you choose which] the politicians in the Western democracies ie the EU and USA ‘signed up to’.
Canada, Japan, Australia have woken up, we still sleep walk and they still impose carbon taxes.
Richard Tol:
1) What about Tax breaks for reducing carbon output. If we want to increase capital investment that permanently reduces carbon emissions, we will get more results with honey rather than vinegar.
2) Is the West’s carbon drop just a shift to China’s increase as they have evolved to be the cheap and dirty manufacturing wing of our economy?
Thanks.
Some day they’re gonna run out of our money.
Richard, this seems a little niave to me. In france and the rest of europe an increase in one tax will be spent immediately so they increase another tax and that gets spent so they increase another tax and that gets spent. There is no reducing one tax because you increase another. Europe is as close to communism as you can get without living in Cuba. Tax and spend = socio-communism.
Bloke down the pub says:
December 15, 2013 at 11:29 am
Some day they’re gonna run out of our money.
Some day we will run out of money, like Cuba. We will be on bikes because cars older than 3 years will be banned and there will no be enough disposable (in france imposable) income to buy anything. The Eu commisariat will be fine, thank you.
Unless one is unfamiliar with ‘fuels’ and how or what the combustion process works or yields, I suppose a ‘carbon tax’ is a necessity, lacking, again, knowledge of fuels and the combustion process … otherwise a fuels tax make sense. The mechanism to collect and enforce that tax is already in place (no need to needlessly duplicate paper-shuffling bureaucracy).
The point of a ‘carbon tax’ was/has (apparently) morphed out of a ‘carbon exchange’ scheme where additional ‘blood’ could be bled from the productive side of the system or house to the benefit of the ‘traders’ and those getting in on the ground floor of the Ponzi scheme.
.
Richard Tol, “If you want to reduce taxes, a carbon tax would still allow for deeper cuts in income taxes etc.”
If you believe any guvment will ever reduce income taxes, I have a bridge in NY to sell to you. Don’t feed the beast.
Richard Tol says:
“because Europe is drowning in public debt, because the US can’t afford its entitlement programmes, because China can’t pay for its pensions, and because India needs infrastructure”
So the carbon tax in the West pays for China’s pensions and India’s infrastructure? Just what the UN and IPCC want!
This possibility of conflict with China is real. It makes no sense for us to undercut our own economies and energy generation capabilities in the face of China’s all out push to develop their own.
Richard Tol gives the game away. The real purpose of the carbon tax is to pay for the socialist entitlement state. Of course, what he doesn’t realize (or doesn’t tell us) is that the money will be spent to expand existing programs and create new ones, and not reduce the debt or deficit spending substantively. That has been the history of new taxes and increases in existing ones.
We are told that the world will end in catastrophe unless carbon emissions are reduced to 350ppm so the politicians tax ‘carbon emissions’.
If a large group of us were doing something like working on nuclear bombs that could lead to catastrophe of the type that CAGW is promoting; would the powers that be _tax_ us for doing it or would they take rather more immediate action? I put it to you that there would be rapid and insistent use of force to prevent us ‘destroying the world’.
The very fact that the catastrophic AGW proponents will allow emissions to continue as long as the tax,is paid is proof that they do not believe in the catastrophe.
So to answer the question of the post “Why does the west need a carbon tax?”. It is to enrich politicians, their friends and their bankers and to increase their power. As David Rose has shown the politicians are extremely adept at insider trading to their advantage even if it means the impoverishment of their countries.
A carbon tax would be very unpopular amongst the voters as we have demonstrated here in Canada and it would be irresistable for whomever is in power to not keep increasing it to pay for their political pet projects. We have already seen what happens when professionals tamper with temperatures to try and prove their point the earth is getting warmer, do we really need politicians telling us how much worse things are so they can raise this tax forever?
Better to nip the whole idea in the bud and severely punish politically anyone who advocates for this tax. No good will come from it whatsoever.
Because we don’t need a manufacturing base or a middle class. Send all those jobs overseas where they belong, and bring on more of those lower-paying service jobs for the struggling middle class. After all, isn’t struggle good for the character? /sarc
Richard Tol writes: “Therefore, if you want to increase taxes, you should increase those taxes that are currently low (e.g., a carbon tax). If you want to keep taxes as they are, you should decrease those that are high (income, capital, consumption), and increase those that are low (carbon).”
I suppose you don’t include gasoline taxes as a form of carbon taxation, which, although not their original intent are now effectively taxes on carbon. Those are very high in my view, particularly in Europe. In fact, I don’t know of any taxes that are low at the moment.
In America the new trend is toward piddling taxes, those little taxes that government is imposing on your phone bill, your water bill, or your tax bill from state, local or federal governments. The go by various names but usage tax or usage fee is one common description. We are being overwhelmed by them, particularly here in California.
Of course I’m one of those who thinks government is ridiculously overlapping, inefficient, self-promoting, self-generating and increasingly authoritarian, so forgive me.
Carbon taxes in the West also have a hidden affect: they increase costs of production and transportation of all goods that are manufactured, thus putting Western manufacturers at a disadvantage in world markets.
Potter Eaton says:
December 15, 2013 at 11:47 am
“Richard Tol gives the game away. The real purpose of the carbon tax is to pay for the socialist entitlement state. Of course, what he doesn’t realize (or doesn’t tell us) is that the money will be spent to expand existing programs and create new ones, and not reduce the debt or deficit spending substantively. That has been the history of new taxes and increases in existing ones.”
It’s really very simple, this cartoon describes it not only for Obama but for the Eurocrats as well
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2013/12/Obama-Class-Warfare-Strategy.jpg
Higher taxes buy more freebies and keep the populous apathetic, and that’s the prime objective as we go down.
Richard Tol (@RichardTol) says:
December 15, 2013 at 11:15 am
“Therefore, if you want to increase taxes, you should increase those taxes that are currently low (e.g., a carbon tax). If you want to keep taxes as they are, you should decrease those that are high (income, capital, consumption), ”
Carbon based fuel is taxed in Germany like this: Value added tax, mineral oil tax, eco tax. All in all 70 % of the price at the pump are tax. Inventing a carbon tax on top of it – that’s one we don’t have, we have the carbon credit scheme instead, but that’s not directly in the end consumer price – would be politically interesting only insofar as it looks like a small tax when in fact it’s just another tax hike. Make it look small by dividing it into a dozen taxes, fees and levies.
When looking at economics I never care for the names of the taxes, just the relative size of the public sector part of GDP. Why would I want to keep track of every idiotic political ploy. What’s important is the size of the parasitic sector; for instance, never invest a dime in France, that’s a good start for a strategy.
Under a well-run system in which taxes are fairly taken for benefits fairly received, we would not need a carbon tax. There would be enough money in the system to fund a new series of short-term projects – like the development of Green technologies – because prior series of short-term projects – like road or dam building, would have come to an end. Our world system of taxation is not well-run, not fairly taken nor result in benefits fairly received. The system is self-justifying as any empire-building, human-defended system elsewhere in our society.
Wars: when you have standing armies, you have to send them somewhere. The French realised this when they sent the Foreign Legion out of France. The army will do something, for that is what it’s purpose is, and it would be better if it did that thing somewhere else (until it is actually needed at home or someplace in particular). Corporate lawyers and IT departments and accountants self-justify by finding where they can practice, and in so doing grow, prove their importance and generate trouble. The tax department finds and collects taxes. Those well-run tax departments find new monies, new ways to tax, new ways to get more money for their masters. And the masters find new things to do with their new money because, well, they want to do a “good” job, too, even if that does not mean a necessary or desired job.
We are being taxed to death. Not the very rich, of course, who have avenues to avoid it (ask a Kennedy, a Gore or even a Suzuki or Michael Moore if you want to find dodges to keep working for you that green the rest of us give up each April). But it is not the level of taxation that is the real problem, the real problem is that it is not fairly taken nor generating fair benefits. And it does not target projects that come to an end with a tangible benefit that continues, but targets infrastructure (including institutional) that creates on-going, never-ending maintenance costs. The new tax never fixes a problem or establishes a presence that has an end.
The carbon tax is going to go into general revenue like all other taxes. There is not a country in the world that says that the tax will go to a specific, identifiable and demonstrable item that can be directly verified for effectiveness. The green subsidies come from somewhere that does not have a measurable result that defines its existence: the taxes that go to it come from general revenue and cannot be specifically terminated because of non-success. Which means that whatever theoretical tax that is generated for the Green initiatives can be redirected to anywhere, at any time. So it would be with the carbon tax. It doesn’t have to do anything, achieve anything, to go forward, for it will be spent on whatever the governors want. Regardless of whether you agreed that that was what the “new” tax was for.
In Canada, back in the 1980s, the government of the time created a national energy policy that included the creation of a national oil company, Petro-Can. The people paid for it, we were told, by a specific tax on gasoline. Petro-Can got paid for. Did the tax come off? Of course not. Petro-Can got sold back to the market. Did the taxpayers get a cheque in the mail? Of course not. The tax and the sale simply went to a general revenue account and were spent elsewhere on things that we had no say about except on the 4th year election day.
We can always use a specific tax. But only when that tax is designated to specific, traceable programs that are time-limited and required to show effectiveness. And then the tax is removed. Fairly taken for benefits fairly received. But that is not how our tax system is built, and that is not how our government is designed, that is, not designed to be accountable for how it spends our money (or how it acts in general, actually).
We do not need a Carbon Tax for the same reason we do not need any so-called target-denominated tax. There is no end to one, and there is no accountability to one as things are organized all over the world. A “carbon” tax is a ruse by skillful magicians on all us in the audience who they consider (rightly) to be rubes with money in our pockets.