Concordia researcher shows which countries are most responsible for the cost of environmental damages from global warming — and the billions of dollars they could be owing.
From CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY
Montreal, September 8, 2015 — All countries have contributed to recent climate change, but some much more so than others. Those that have contributed more than their fair share have accumulated a climate debt, owed to countries that have contributed less to historical warming.
This is the implication of a new study published in Nature Climate Change, in which Concordia University researcher Damon Matthews shows how national carbon and climate debts could be used to decide who should pay for the global costs of climate mitigation and damages.
The countries that have accumulated the largest carbon debts on account of higher than average per-capita carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are the United States, Russia, Japan, Germany, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia.
The U.S. alone carries 40 per cent of the cumulative world debt, while Canada carries about four per cent. On the other side, the carbon creditors — those whose share of CO2 emissions has been smaller than their share of world population — are India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria, Brazil and China, with India holding 30 per cent of the total world credit.
“Thinking of climate change in terms of debts and credits for individual countries shows how much countries have over- or under-contributed to historical warming, relative to their proportion of the world’s population over time,” explains Matthews, study author and associate professor in Concordia’s Department of Geography, Planning and Environment.
“This paints a striking picture of the historical inequalities among countries with respect to their greenhouse gas emissions and consequent responsibility for climate changes.”
Calculating climate responsibility
To estimate differences in national responsibility for historical climate changes, Matthews first calculated carbon debts and credits based on fossil fuel CO2 emission and population records since 1990. It was around this date that scientific knowledge and public understanding of the dangers of human-driven climate changes began to solidify.
Since that time, the total carbon debt across all debtor nations has increased to 250 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide. And it’s still going up: the increase in world carbon debt in 2013 alone was 13 billion tonnes, or about 35% of global CO2 emissions in that year.
So what is the monetary value of this debt? “According to a recent U.S. government report, the current best estimate of the social cost of present-day CO2 emissions is about $40 USD per tonne of CO2,” says Matthews. “Multiply $40 by the 13 billion tonnes of carbon debt accrued in 2013, and you get $520 billion. This cost estimate gives us an indication of how much we could be paying to help lower-emitting countries cope with the costs of climate changes, or develop their economies along carbon-free pathways.”
Looking at the total world carbon debt, the numbers are even more staggering: the 250 billion tonnes of debt accumulated since 1990, at $40 per tonne, represents $10 trillion USD. “No matter how you look at this picture, these numbers are really big — much, much larger than even the most generous financial commitments currently pledged by countries to help with the cost of climate adaptation and damages in vulnerable countries.”
CO2 emissions vs. degrees of debt
Matthews also calculated how much each country has over- or under-contributed to temperature increases as a result of a range of different greenhouse gas emissions. By this measure, the total accumulated world climate debt comes to 0.1 °C since 1990, close to a third of observed warming over this period of time. Again the U.S. is the single largest debtor, and India is the largest creditor. Some countries, however, like Brazil and Indonesia, switch from being carbon creditors, to being among the climate debtor countries, as a result of the additional greenhouse gas emissions produced by deforestation and agriculture.
“This idea of climate and carbon debts and credits highlight the large historical inequalities with respect to how much individual countries have contributed to climate warming,” says Matthews. “The historical debts and credits calculated here could be a helpful tool to inform policy discussions relating to historical responsibility and burden sharing, by providing a measure of who should pay — and how much they might be expected to pay — for the costs of mitigation and climate damages in countries with lower emissions.”
What does this mean for the upcoming Paris meetings?
As countries continue to announce their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (or INDCs) leading up to December’s climate talks in Paris, it is becoming increasingly clear that these emissions pledges will not be enough to meet the international goal of limiting global warming to 2°C (see related research by Matthews’ research group published last month in Environmental Research Letters). The idea of additionally accounting for debts and credits would of course increase the burden placed on countries with high historical emissions. “But these historical inequalities are real and substantial, and need to be fully acknowledged,” says Matthews. “My hope is that this discussion will help lead to a stronger and more meaningful global climate agreement.”
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Related links:
Cited study in Nature Climate Change
Related article in Environmental Research Letters
The Democratic Party will be ANNIHILATED if they impose a gigantic international tax on the voters. Period. Won’t exist anymore nor will Labour in England.
Wish you were right, but California is absolute proof that DEMS/Progressives can pass massive CO2 tax increases and fees on it’s citizens and there is no rebellion. The citizens of CA continue to vote them into office even though they are being financially bled to death.
By the way, the Japanese and Chinese and Russia already made it crystal clear they aren’t paying a pfenning to the global warming scam fund. And the GOP already said they won’t pay up, either.
They can pry my indulgences from my cold dead carbon life-form hands.
On all the similar issues, CO2, slavery and other historical debts, I am with commenters who point out that what has been given to the world outweighs such stupid debts – in my opinion many thousands of times. In the mid 1960s, when I was in Nigeria, either Ella Fitzgerald or Sarah Vaughan (can’t remember) was singing at the new first high rise in Lagos – The Federal Palace Hotel. It was too packed to get a seat. The next day in the newspaper, a story appeared in which she had been overheard saying to a band member “Thank God for slavery” after a tour of the city. Not very gracious but an idea that she wasn’t agonizing over her family having been taken to the US. This retribution, restitution chestnut is an old one and it was started, of course, by self-loathing white progressives.
I am particularly teed off that the UN, World Bank, IMF and the other controllers have a policy of preventing poorer countries from joining the prosperity club and fully benefiting and contributing to it. Had I a nice multibillion fund for good works, I would create cheap energy generating projects in the poorer sectors of the world and hire security to keep the ugly haters away.
I guess if we wanted to go with the logic of the elitist civilization destroyers all the way, we should all pass the debt on to Rome, Greece, Egypt, Babylon all the way back to Mesopotamian civilization as the real culprits. We were so happy living out our 25 year lifespan in hovels in the forest, hunting and gathering, starving and freezing, knocked down pestilence, wild aurochs and club combat with our neighbours until these damned civilized folks came along and turned our lives upside down.
Before we get to edgy about it, you should know that Concordia in Montreal is a joke and not an institute of higher learning like Universite de Montreal and McGill University.
The supposed damages are fictitious and have no demonstrable basis in reality, therefore, not a cent should be paid.
I noted the other day that 18% of the human body is carbon. Thinking about what we eat, they are largely carbohydrates, which means our bodies are made up of about 65% carbon dioxide – now that’s a sequestration project. One way to even things up is to grant to all countries the right to catch up using cheap fossil fuels. It is going to happen some day anyway and history may judge this evil withholding of fossil fuels as the second and worst colonial period. If third world people don’t get what is going on, then there should be widespread reporting on this until these people tell the neo Karl Ms to go and #@&*.
Carbon debts eh? How about offsetting the carbon debt against the foreign aid given by US, Canada, UK, Aust, NZ & others over very many years, it amounts to billions.
Whether developed countries (should) owe anything to developing countries because of the former’s greater contribution to CO2 emissions has been addressed previously in Climate Change: No Harm, No Claim. This was written as part of a “web debate” sponsored by the Reason Foundation with Jonathan Adler — a law prof at Case Western University — who claims that libertarians should support “reparations” to the developed countries because of global warming (see here.) Of course, his basic premise, that greenhouse gas emissions are a net negative is suspect and unproven. There were follow up posts, but I can’t locate them.
Thanks for the reference.
When I left school, I deliberately moved to a warmer climate. So if somebody accuses me of making the world warmer, I’ll say, “You’re welcome.”
Another scientist reluctantly joining the fray…
http://www.concordia.ca/faculty/damon-matthews.html
“Attention Media: Will speak on climate change related issues”
It is always remarkable how the far-left loons can make up catastrophe-on-demand by simply being endlessly dishonest. The claims are always made as if actual evidence exists when none does. The natural, constantly changing climate is completely ignored. The thought that humans can control climate is pure witchcraft. The so-called debt owed is that of the third world to the developed world for all the billions in aid that has been squandered and stolen. Until the principals of freedom and free market economics are adopted by the third world, they will never advance beyond destitution and darkness.
The NIEO (New International Economic Order) was all about redistribution of wealth from rich countries to poor countries but Reagan helped put the end to it in the early 80’s. The socialists came back with the Brundtland Report, written by Gro Harlem Brundtland, a VP in socialistinternational.org. (By the way, after ‘conservative’ George W. Bush kicked out Saddam, guess who Iraq elected for it’s president… a person who is a VP in socialistinternational.org. How is i that we would sacrifice all of those lives and spend hundreds of billions of dollars to let them elect a socialist?… Think about that.)
It is imperative that we do NOT let the left win on this issue because if we do, it’s goodby freedom, liberty, and your high standard of living. Eff the left!
The only picture this paints is that of idiotic leftist nonsense. Typical CJW (Climate Justice Warrior)- insanity.
CAGW is a non issue: No need for carbon dioxide emission limits, there is no carbon dioxide ‘debt’, and there is no need for carbon dioxide limit trading if the Bern model assumptions are not correct.
Lead/lag analysis indicates that the majority of the recent CO2 rise is from the deep ocean rather than from anthropogenic emissions (see Humlum et al’s linked to paper.) The key issue is how much mixing there is of the deep ocean with the surface ocean. Do you remember the heat hiding in the deep ocean hypothesis? The heat hiding in the deep ocean hypothesis, if correct makes anthropogenic CO2 emissions a non issue.
The Bern model assumes there is almost no mixing of the deep ocean with the surface ocean. The heat hiding in the deep ocean hypothesis requires that there be mixing of the surface ocean with the deep ocean. If there is significant mixing of deep ocean water with surface water (this what the heat hiding in the deep ocean hypothesis requires) then the majority of the anthropogenic CO2 will be transferred into the deep ocean carbon reservoir which is more than 50 times greater than the atmospheric CO2 reservoir. The key logical point is that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very, very, small compared to the super enormous, deep ocean carbon reservoir.
Mixing of the surface ocean with the deep ocean explains why the lifetime for a CO2 molecule in the atmosphere based on the bomb test analysis is 5 to 7 years where the IPCC Bern ‘model’ assumes it is 200 years and a portion forever. I repeat the Bern model assumes a portion of the anthropogenic CO2 remains in the atmosphere forever. Storms cause massive, complex, deep waves in the ocean and hence cause complex deep mixing of the surface ocean with the deep ocean. Storms partially explain why there is no discrete ocean conveyor.
http://scholar.google.ca/scholar_url?hl=en&q=http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/18208928/233408642/name/phase%2Brelation%2Bbetween%2Batmospheric%2Bcarbon%2Band%2Bglobal%2Btemperature.pdf&sa=X&scisig=AAGBfm2_FClsSVBbTLdzlwJJytToRLHpNw&oi=scholarr&ei=N-SVUvKOD9PtoATG6IHgCQ&sqi=2&ved=0CCsQgAMoADAA
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/in-the-news/the_phase_relation_between_atmospheric_carbon_dioxide_and_global_temperatur/
The following is a good review paper of the history of CO2 atmospheric research and the history of the IPCC shenanigans. It is interesting that peer reviewed papers all contradict the IPCC’s Bern model assumptions.
The physical implication of the C14 bomb test analysis is the majority of the CO2 increase in the last 70 years was caused by the warming of the oceans rather than the anthropogenic CO2 emissions.
Truly fascinating!
http://folk.uio.no/tomvs/esef/ESEF3VO2.pdf
Up here in the hills of Colorado the climate’s been cooling for 15 years, and we know where that cold air is coming from. So who’s to blame for climate change…
I know how you feel. Here in Vancouver we get our bad weather from Alaska.
Dear Richard,
In answer to your IMPORTANT question … ” So who’s to blame for climate change…”, I attach here the splendid paper entitled Fallacies about Global Warming, written by John McLean exactly eight (8) years ago for the Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI).
It may be helpful (at first reading) to view each of the eight headings and then skip to the LAST sentence of each section.
If you happen to know of anyone who could do better I should be pleased to know.
PS: there is only one person who may have done “better” but I believe that person is extremely busy right now making something which should rock the world to its’ senses. (I do hope so).
Regards,
WL
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/originals/fallacies.html
And if the additional CO2 in the air is not equal to the CO2 added by man?
So, my children and grandchildren should be penalized for being born into an industrialized country that they had no control over or even a say in what happens because the climate zealots want us to pay restitution? This is wrong. F anybody who try’s to take our way of life away.
Idiots.
Would you all stop voting one star for this WUWT article? The title is, “Eye-roller Study.”
There is absolutely NO evidence of damages caused by the roughly 0.2C of CO2 induced warming.since the end of the Little Ice Age…
To the contrary, such a trivial amount of warming has been positive: more arable land in Northern latitudes, longer growing seasons, less severe winters, larger tree line, earlier springs, etc.
Moreover, the CO2 fertilization effect has increased crop yields by 25% and the “evil” petrol-chemical fertilizers have increased crop yields by 70% just since 1980….
Let’s take wheat for example. Crop yields for wheat are now around 7,000 kg/acre X 25% CO2 fertilization= 1,750kg/acre increase in yields x $0.17/kg wheat price= $297.50/acre net CO2 benefit.
Since the U.S. has contributed to 40% of this benefit, the world owes the U.S. roughly $119/acre for all wheat grown on earth… That calculation needs to done for all food grains, plus all lumber production worldwide and the net amount needs to be paid to all US oil, coal and natural gas companies based on their respective market shares in the industry.
The United States was the first country to use nuclear fission to produce heat and electricity on a large scale basis. That has reduced the US’s CO2 releases, and that of many other countries, notably France. Surely that reduces our debt by quite a bit.
I take it that they’ve not taken into account the fact that CO2 doesn’t hang around in the air forever?
In any case, this deserves to be stood on its head because CO2 is a wonderful gas for plants, and it may even have a slight warming effect on our climate in a few centuries, which would be an immense help to future generations, seeing how we’re in an Ice Age. Therefore, countries that haven’t emitted much CO2 owe the USA and immense debt for our contribution.
THE USA IS NOT EVEN IN THE TOP 10 !!!
The top 10 CO2 emitting nations, per capita, are: Qatar , Trinidad and Tobago , Kuwait , Brunei Darussalam , Aruba , Oman , Luxembourg , United Arab Emirates , Saudi Arabia , Bahrain
Data from http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC/
The real tragedy is that the lowest per capita CO2 emitting countries are predominantly in Africa and are being denied access to large-scale cheap energy by Barack Obama and the World Bank. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/27/the-u-s-will-stop-subsidizing-coal-plants-overseas-is-the-world-bank-next/
The evil being done by this climate scam and its wilfully(?) gullible adherents is almost beyond belief.
Qatar has free electricity, cheap refined petroleum (~11 cents per liter), and every Qatari receives around $50,000 a year from the state.
That’s why they have the highest per-capita CO2 output on the planet.
The conclusion that “All countries have contributed to recent climate change” is unfounded.
Since there isn’t any recent climate change documented, I agree!
Having lived in Canada all my life I can tell you that a lot of what comes out of Universities can be taken with a grain of salt. First the per capita basis is totally useless when you look at what Canada produces for energy and why. We live with 6 months of winter and six months of bad skidooing. Our energy production is very high per capita but 80% of the energy we produce goes to our bigger neighbor to the south. We ship upwards of 5.0 Billion cubic ft of natural gas alone to the USA everyday. To get that amount to market it is removed from the wells, processed and pumped to the market points at the borders. If you look at the amount of energy that it takes to get a cubic ft of gas to market it comes out to about 1/2 of what is removed from the ground is used to get this gas to markets. A classic example is the Trans-Canada main line from Empress Alberta to the sales border points in Ontario and Quebec. 1/2 of the gas entering the system in Alberta is burned as fuel to get this gas to Eastern markets. At the Koyoto climate meetings the Finns were jumping up on the meeting tables and screaming at us poor Canadians “That we were the worst energy abusers in the world” on a per capita basis.
Sorry, but I think China and India would be higher on that list if the truth should be told…