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
============================================================
Slides available here: CO2 emmission data (PowerPoint PPTX)
Spreadsheet available here: CO2 emissions 12-13 (1)(Excel)
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I just got one of those supposedly funny emails in the Letterman style: “The Top Ten Reasons to Vote Democrat.” I won’t bore you with all of them, but one of them is relevant to this discussion:
2. I voted Democrat because I believe oil company’s profits of 4% on a gallon of gas are obscene, but the government taxing the same gallon of gas at 15% isn’t.
Ironically, a carbon tax may increase emissions drastically, for the good of the biosphere at least in the short term, since once governments rely on this tax, they will want more and more of that revenue, not less. And citizens benefit since they then obtain more energy as fracking becomes a real revolution, paid for by Mother Earth.
Really shows the picture. Pushing forward on reducing CO2 levels and taxing people and Industry into compliance now looks doubly stupid (and it looked hugely stupid before). These graphs need to be out and about where everyone can see them. Great article, Ed.
In Europe we already pay a large carbon tax, particularly on vehicle fuel, some 75% of the cost is tax. Taxing domestic electricity and heating and transport will not lead to a reduction as these needs are to a large extent inelastic.
You pay 15% tax on gas in the US ? we pay 75% tax in the EU, it hasn’t reduced demand, people still have to get to work.
Remind me again why the west needs a carbon tax?
———————–
To help fund the left’s war on prosperity.
The futility and dishonesty in state and local policies to reduce emissions is even more egregious as they divert local resources away from real community needs and into the rat hole of deceitful government dysfunction.
Keep focusing on gradual efficiencies, and perfecting the creation of CO2 and you get a cleaner environment. Every process should focus on minimizing CO and maximizing the CO2 percentages.
Could someone, perhaps Richard Tol, explain to us why the world needs carbon taxes to limit emissions in the following scenario: When the equilibrium climate sensitivity to 2 x CO2 is in the range 1.3 to 1.9 deg C as is indicated by the most authorative recent research on the topic?
If the transient sensitivity is in the range 0.8 to 1.5 deg C and if the equilibrium sensitivity takes several hundred years to reach its full impact then why would be bother with the tax. Surely adaption is the only sensible option. Cold someone please point out where am I going wrong on this topic? I thought the whole climate change thing was a nett positive untill we got to 2 deg C of warming. Again, please let me know where my point of confusion lies.
J. Martin: “You pay 15% tax on gas in the US ? we pay 75% tax in the EU, it hasn’t reduced demand, people still have to get to work.” I sympathize with you over there. I drove around the UK in 96 and was shocked at how much it cost.
I think that 15% is an average of some kind. In California we pay roughly 75 cents a gallon. And gas is around 3.80 a gallon now. Here’s a wiki on gasoline taxes in the US:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_States
Regardless, I think the idea of imposing a carbon tax on top of that would prove once and for all that government is gluttonous and intent on hurting people economically for the benefit of their bureaucracies.
Dr. Nils-Axel Mörner 2013 : The Great Sea Level Humbug
http://youtu.be/Ycq5CJiMer8
Richard Tol (@RichardTol) says (December 15, 2013 at 11:15 am): “If you want to reduce taxes, a carbon tax would still allow for deeper cuts in income taxes etc.”
If you really want to reduce taxes, you should reduce taxes. Period.
The only way to reduce taxes is to reduce the size and scope of government. It simply won’t happen otherwise.
And that isn’t going to happen anytime soon. There is almost no mainstream support for libertarian principles today.
The middle classes are being forced to abandon their traditional fiscally conservative values. They are getting to keep a smaller and smaller proportion of their steadily falling incomes. So, they have little choice but to join the entitlement class and grab whatever handouts they can get to help support their families.
I think it’s inevitable that most of us are headed for a Government plantation of one kind or another.
when u have big ideas, u need big money:
15 Dec: AP: Climate change is new enemy for Kerry in Vietnam
Kerry said he would make it a personal priority to ensure that none of the six countries that share the Mekong – China, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam – and depend on it for the livelihoods of an estimated 60 million people – exploits the river at the expense of the others…
In a pointed reference to China, which plans several Mekong Dam projects that could affect downstream populations, Kerry said: “No one country has a right to deprive another country of a livelihood, an ecosystem and its capacity for life itself that comes from that river. That river is a global asset, a treasure that belongs to the region.”…
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20131215/DAAMTNNG1.html
don’t know where this was “hidden”, but amazed it was in a Fairfax Newspaper. Big Media heavily involved in this Agenda 21 “enterprise”:
Dec 2012: Sydney Morning Herald: Smart meters, but at whose expense?
THE introduction of smart meters in Victoria may have been a costly exercise for consumers but it has proven an impressive money spinner for a handful of Australian entrepreneurs.
Cameron O’Reilly, the scion of the Heinz food empire and former chief of media group APN, along with John B. Fairfax, the Smorgon family and Kerry Stokes are a few of the high-profile names to have made a killing from the sale of smart meters. They were major shareholders of Landis + Gyr, the company that amassed about 56 per cent of the market in deals to supply the electricity distributors in Victoria.
Their big payday came in 2011 when O’Reilly sold Landis + Gyr to Toshiba for $US2.3 billion.
An investigation by BusinessDay has found Australians have been paying about twice the amount for smart meters than consumers in the US and Europe. And there has been poor transparency even though the metering devices had been mandated by the government…
That the costs of the implementation in Victoria have already blown out from $800 million to $2.3 billion presents a salutary warning to New South Wales, which is now deliberating on a rollout of its own, albeit optional…
http://www.smh.com.au/business/smart-meters-but-at-whose-expense-20121223-2btjd.html
The “green scams” which is what the ‘carbon’ tax is planned to be spent on, has unintentional consequences, in addition to wasting money with almost no reduction in CO2 which makes no difference as the majority of the warming in the last 70 years was caused by solar magnetic cycle changes rather than the CO2 and as the planet has started to cool due to the interruption of the solar magnetic cycle.
I would highly recommend Robert Bryce’s book “Power Hunger: The Myths of “Green” energy and the real fuels of the Future. The following are a couple of quotes from Bryce’s book. The developing countries are being duped by China and following the EU off of an economic cliff.
The green scams do not significantly reduce CO2 emissions in the developing world. The green scams do result in a massive loss of jobs. The loss of well paying jobs in the developing world is the crisis, not the idiotic EAGW crisis. The path that we are on will lead to the collapse of the US, the EU, and all developing countries that following the AGW madness.
China has a monopoly on rare earth elements and is using that monopoly to exploit the developing countries. We are losing the economic war.
“…a deal that the city Austin’s municipal utility, Austin Energy, made in early 2009. The utility agreed to build a solar ‘farm’ that will use 220,000 solar panels: All of them will be made in China. Or consider wind turbines: In late 2009, the backers of a $1.5 billion wind project in West Texas announced that they were planning to install 240 wind turbines on the 36,000 acre site. The project backers were seeking $450 million in federal ‘stimulus’ money to make the ‘deal’ happen. All of the wind turbines for the project are to built in China.”
“The American wind sector is almost wholly dependent on neodymium-iron-boron magnets, which are used inside wind turbines. General electric reportily buys all of its neodymium-iron-boron magnets from China.”
China has high tariffs on rare earth materials for export to force manufactures to either close or to move manufacturing to China. In addition China subsidizes China manufacturers to bankrupt competing foreign companies.
“Analysis have called the Prius one of the most rare-earth-intensive consumer products ever made, with each Prius containing about 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) of neodymium and about 10 kilogram (22 pounds) of lanthanium. And its not just the Prius. Other hybrids, such as the Honda Insight and the Ford Fusion, also require significant amounts of these (William: Rare earth elements that China has a monopoly on) rare earth elements.”
In the Netherlands, we already pay a large amount of tax on all utility supplies. Electricity, methaan, water, waste water, waste, everything is taxed. The only thing that is NOT taxed is the air that I breathe. Waait, that was a bad remark, might bring someone to An idea. Silly me.
Why do people want to reduce our co2 emissions? We need to get the ppm up to a nice and healthy 600 to 800ppm. Geologically we are at the low end of co2ppm in the atmosphere.
Richard Tol (@RichardTol)
Increase taxes for carbon? Really? In 2012, taxes in Canada represented on average 39.3 cents per litre, which is approximately 31% of the pump price. The same applies to most western democracies – taxed to the eyeballs! And you want added tax on carbon?
Carbon taxes are a non starter! You show me how 400ppm CO2, mathematically, seals heat in and refuses to let it escape – that I have to see! Then you tell me exactly what part is man made and what part is natural.
Before I talk about taxes, I would like to note that carbon dioxide emissions are a net benefit to the planet.
In British Columbia, Canada where I live, we have a so called revenue neutral carbon tax. Its purpose is supposedly to reduce consumption of fossil fuels. I suspect that the current government of B.C. knows that global warming / climate change is a scam, and is using the Prime Minister Stephen Harper strategy of pretending that they still believe what the MSM (except the National Post / Financial Post) say. B.C. is going ahead with its LNG plans, which will increase emissions, putting the Michael Campbell, the former premier that introduced the carbon tax, legacy at risk as one TV reporter pundit put it.
Increasing taxes doesn’t necessarily increase revenues, as the Laffer curve easily shows. One thing often missed about the Laffer Curve is that less than optimal tax revenue will be more optimal for long term growth. When pundits say that future governments might have to increase taxes to pay for expenses such as pensions, what they should be saying is : Taxes Should Be Decreased, to pay for such and such.
I recall a story about a visitor to the U.S.A from Norway, a country considered wealthy because of oil revenue. Her observations that there were many new cars on the road in America and other observations in contrast to her home country such as how expensive it is to eat out for lunch in Norway. Taxes are high enough to cause people to just bring their own lunch to work.
B.C. not too long ago had a socialist government in power, its leader at that time remarked that they could do anything, tax anything, that kind of rhetoric, what’s yours is ours, because of course they were the ones in power. The following election they were decimated, several times over, and were left with only 2 seats in the legislature. That premier by the way was hired by the multi-billionaire Jim Pattison to help run his empire.
A word to current politicians : Be careful of what you do, you risk undermining the rule of law.
William Astley says:
December 15, 2013 at 3:46 pm
“The green scams do not significantly reduce CO2 emissions in the developing world. The green scams do result in a massive loss of jobs. The loss of well paying jobs in the developing world is the crisis, not the idiotic EAGW crisis. The path that we are on will lead to the collapse of the US, the EU, and all developing countries that following the AGW madness.
China has a monopoly on rare earth elements and is using that monopoly to exploit the developing countries. We are losing the economic war. ”
Hey, it’s not an economic war. Nobody holds a gun to your head and says, buy that made in China iPhone.
As to the rare earth prices, they continue to fall again after the US reactivated the Mountain Pass mine and other projects are underway, breaking the monopoly of China.
Quickly searched for Neodymium prices, one find:
http://www.magnetnrg.com/2/post/2013/05/rare-earth-metals-price-continue-to-fall-prices-for-neodymium-and-dysprosium-in-may-2013.html
What WILL happen is a currency crisis, caused by indebtedness and the massive increase in money printing. The winner will be the one with zee Gold, that’s why China imports record amounts, they have millenia of experiences with Fiat currencies going into hyperinflation, they invented it.
That the resource misallocation due to investment into rather useless contraptions like solar and wind contributed to the indebtedness and slowed the economies of the West is obvious. Look at how Japan’s trading balance went to hell after switching off the nukes. Energy prices are important.
Jimbo says:
December 15, 2013 at 4:25 pm
Why do people want to reduce our co2 emissions? We need to get the ppm up to a nice and healthy 600 to 800ppm. Geologically we are at the low end of co2ppm in the atmosphere.
=====================================================================
There are ‘rich’ people who fear a well educated middle class….
“There has been a very rapid escalation of Chinese CO2 emissions since the year 2000[iv].” it’s no coincidence that China entered the World Trade Organization in 2001. Reduction in manufacturing in the US to China is the main reason the US is down in CO2 emissions, while China is skyrocketing. Death by China is an eye opening documentary.
Despite 1/3rd of ALL manmade CO2 emissions since 1750 made over the past 17 years, the (RSS) global temp trend since October 1996 has been -0.000C/decade and for HADCRUT4, global temp trends are: from January 2001, -0.02C/decade and since January 2003 (-0.05C/decade).
Could someone please remind me again why the West wishes to destroy their economies by implementing debilitating CO2 taxes and draconian CO2 emission regulations?
Oh, yeah, right… to save us from catastrophic global warming…that’s not happening.. Got it….
The true irony of this CAGW fiasco, is that China just started their Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor program (LFTR) in 2011 and recently announced their first test LFTR goes on line around June 2015. This means China should have a viable large-scale commercial LFTR program in place by around 2025; perhaps sooner.
Had the West implemented a LFTR program 20 years ago, we’d already have a substantial amount of cheap LFTR energy (at about 1/5th the cost/watt of wind/solar) and CO2/REAL pollution emissions would be in decline, with vastly improved economic efficiency.
Moreover, we could have saved $trillions that Western governments wasted on CO2 regulations, solar/wind subsidies, large-scale wind/solar projects, CO2 taxes, etc.
Historians will not treat this generation kindly for their CAGW folly.
“Canada, Japan, Australia have woken up, we still sleep walk and they still impose carbon taxes.” Not quite here in Canada. The Liberal provincial government of British Columbia brought in a carbon tax. It’s an economic mess. Schools are forced to pay the tax to heat their buildings. Federal Liberals and the socialist NDP would bring in carbon taxes should they ever form government. Dont count us a sane just yet.
Rivers of tax dollars flowing in random fashion, are a joy to the Kleptocracy, that has evolved from the inbreeding of politicians,media,bureaucrats and NGOs.
A carbon tax is the Emperor’s New Clothes rewritten for the 2010s.
An unmeasured item, taxed and traded,small amounts of the theft remitted to the citizen and so the money flows.
Each transaction must be audited through our bureaus, each time a cost of handling fee must be collected, but its “revenue Neutral”.
A more primitive citizen,would call this a scheme to rob the many, to enrich the few.
Theft by legislation.
Then there is the magic gas, that must not be emitted.
Obviously there must be two species of the amazing CO2, the chart of emissions above, show that as Chinese emissions came to dominate the world emission race, the temperature flattened and now shows some indication of cooling.
Yet the IPCC is absolutely certain that western sourced emissions of CO2 caused the world temperatures to rise.(Rise in the 40s, fall in the 70s, rise in the 90s, fall in the 010s?.)
So does China get a negative carbon tax?
Or is any scheme from the UN best buried in an unmarked hole in the dark of the new moon, the messengers hunted from civilized lands and the bastion of darkness embargoed by all free nations?
The parasites have grown entitled to their entitlements, have no comprehension of the drag they are on free societies and will not become productive members of society voluntarily.
Canada is heavily infested.
Richard Tol (@RichardTol) says: December 15, 2013 at 11:15 am
“…. if you want to increase taxes, you should increase those taxes that are currently low (e.g., a carbon tax)….
Surely a tax is a tax is a tax is a tax …. and the effect of them upon the economy is additive.