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
These are the type of people you don’t want on your side.
Eugene WR Gallun
I was speaking of the chem trail people.
Eugene WR Gallun
[Close that topic please. .mod]
You can’t argue with idiots. they pull you down to their level then beat you with experience.
Australia has been through all this. Despite Australia being a net consumer of CO2, we are rated highly because we export coal. So they add the coal back to Australia’s account and let China keep raising their CO2.
Interesting that the Chinese discovered their gigantic aquifer under the desert is actually storing carbon. Apparently the CO2 trapped is greater than all the world’s plants, if the study can be verified.
Australia has the Great Artesian Basin under a lot of Queensland. Maybe it is performing a similar function, that is not accounted for in these nonsensical studies.
Really all the study is good for is to demonstrate how little is actually known about the planet’s storage of CO2. If more was known we would not have these farcical attempts at CO2 capture and storage, when plants and their roots are already doing it.
I have been right on many of the recent predictions. I just have a feeling (from what all I have seen) that the “Paris Climate Summit” will be a bust. Sorry to you warmers and climate change alarmists. Guess what – the sky is not falling.
I’m really hoping they’ll all be snowed in. No planes in or out due to a blizzard with all attendees stuck either on a plane detouring to – say – Spain, or on the ground in Paris and can’t leave. All looking foolish.
It WILL be cold.
My next favorite daydream is that no one will turn up. It won’t happen at this one (Paris), but one day… wouldn’t it be great?
My other fantasies aren’t so docile. Sometimes I fear this will only end when the ordinary man and woman on the street gets angry. These extremists still have time to step down, to turn around and maybe make good, but I just can’t see that happening. Something has to give. I hope I live long enough to see an end to this weird and sorry tale. Certainly as far as crimes go – this one is unprecedented.
On the demise of Chicken Little
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2015/09/06/tough-day-for-an-alarmist/
Somebody’s tax paid for this crap.
“……owed to countries that have contributed less to historical warming.”
Global welfare program for countries administered by the UN. What’s wrong with this picture?
I didn’t see China. Where is it hiding?
In equity courts there is the ‘clean hands doctrine’ whereby “… the defendant argues that the plaintiff is not entitled to obtain an equitable remedy because the plaintiff is acting unethically or has acted in bad faith with respect to the subject of the complaint …” (Wiki).
For instance the court is hardly likely to look favourably on a plaintiff arguing that the neighbour’s furnace is causing a nuisance if the defendant shows that the plaintiff is installing a furnace of exactly the same type with the same issues but much bigger.
Of course the analogy works only if CO2 emissions are regarded as a net negative.
Foxtrot Oscar.
Astounding nonsense! Rather difficult to find words with which to respond to this. Even if it does turn out that burning fossil carbon is detrimental, it is still crashing, overwhelming nonsense. Who paid for it?
I have a nightmare image of kids playing a board game based on this, with squares around the edge representing nations, and little counters with various carbon credits or penalties which may be accumulated by countries on the basis of dice thrown to represent various government policies. And this game being used in junior schools to show our kids just what bad guys the western countries are, and just how much they owe the rest! Unless somebody thought of it already….
The terrible, nagging, dispiriting thought I have is that a significant number of the people that now rule us will take it seriously, so far from common sense has the climate debate now gone.
By the way, is there any precedent for reparations being paid for damages which haven’t yet occurred, and may never occur? I doubt even George Orwell’s imagination could have come up with this.
It matters how to look at the problem. Not only per capita. The surface of a country has to be included because it represents a part of the CO2 recovery. I made this calculations a year ago and with amazing results.
Global 233 Russia 100 Canada 49 China 984 Brazil 118 Australie 40 India 555 USA 594 Europe(EU)1567 Netherlands 5700.
The historical benchmark is around 100.
The best performers are Canada and Australie and just Russia.
Of course dense populated countries are worser off.
Look we can solve two problems at once and the politicians will get two sets of votes, make it so you can work off carbon debt on the basis of taking refugees from Syria. The only detail we need to work out what then is the rate per refugee so they can be traded on the new carbon refugee credit market we create. So you can then either pay your debt in money or take refugees a win win for any good left wing green type. The UN being the totally useless left wing green organization that it is should be able to get broad agreement on this with similar green left wing groups in time for Paris and solve yet another problem. I am trying to work out how I get the Palestinian and Jews into the plan to complete the package so please post any suggestions.
I like JJM’s surface area adjustment but a couple of penguins in Antarctica are going to get a big bill that I am not sure how they are going to pay it off except by taking a fair few Syrian refugees.
Now I do not mean to make light of Syrian refugees but there are some thought bubbles that probably should never get passed that point and much less published.
If one looks at the so-called average temperature over time, one sees that the Little Ice Age was not pleasant and that increasing temperatures were a good thing. There was no contribution of CO2 in this rise in temperatures and no one has been able to prove that CO2 has any positive effect on near surface temps at all. In fact, my reading is that CO2 has an overall small cooling effect.
The big fish in the pond is H2O in all its states. CO2 just does not matter. We have had epochs with far more CO2 than now in pre-industrial times. It is natural for the levels of CO2 to rise and fall. (most likely driven by temperature of the ocean)
I get angry thinking about the harm done to the poor worldwide by this mindless scam of CO2 as a magic molecule. F’ing mindless.
“All countries have contributed to recent climate change” This makes as much sense as the news media who keep banging on about carbon pollution. These people have become barking mad.
What “recent climate change”? The pause in temps predates Ally McBeal, and South Park.
Well I have seen climate change in my years. Used to live in England, usually cold and wet. 1976 summer was warm. Then I lived in Ireland, moist to wet but not too cold. Then Belgium…nah forget Belgium, but the frites and may was good, oh and the beer. Then New Zealand, not as cold as England, warmer usually with a sprinkle of earthquakes and volcanos and very windy in Wellington. Australia is cool in winter, mild in spring, hot in summer and cool in autumn. So yeah there you have it, climate change in two hemispheres in a nutshell!
Pat Frank wrote
“MCourtney, the UK didn’t abolish slavery because it had the wealth and power to do so. The UK abolished slavery because English society had developed an ethical outlook far superior to any other then in existence.”
This is of course largely erroneous The simple reality is that without British merchants and traders the international slave trade would never have got off the ground. The foundation of the British Empire was the Triangular Trade where ships traded British made goods to Africans in return for slaves, then conveyed the slaves to the Americas where they were traded for cotton, tobacco and sugar which were then conveyed back to the markets of Europe where the cycle began again.
The reason for the ending of such slavery was primarily economic. By the 1830’s when slavery was abolished in the British Empire it was simply cheaper to use the new steam powered machines to process cotton, tobacco and sugar than to employ slaves. The stoop labour in the fields was largely seasonal so employing freed blacks when needed was cheaper than having to keep them housed and fed all year and providinf the troops needed to keep them in a state of slavery. Slave revolts were frequent, dangerous and above all expensive. Even the plantation owners in the West Indies recognized that the system of slavery was unsustainable. None of this takes anything away from campaigners such as William Wilberforce but by the 1830’s they were pushing on an open door.
Even in the southern states of the USA the writing was on the wall with the introduction of steam powered cotton gins in the 1850’s reducing the need to employ the large numbers of slaves needed by manual gins.
There is no such thing as “climate debt”.
Our comments would mean something if we had some clout. The best we can hope for is another hoax a hagen.. a foot of snow and nobody agreeing to anything. Misbegotten Obama will probably show up to shore up the failings of this bad science, which I think most thinking people in power will pay lip service to, but don’t believe it either or is so far beyond anyone’s reach that it is meaningless. The US is still important, but we aren’t what we use to be. We are becoming a third world country with a 1st world military, and that maybe in doubt. When was the last time we did something that was successful? We have a lot of stupid leaders.
If Danegeld worked, I’d want us to pay $520B for them Shut Up. It’s cheaper than what we are doing now.
Danegeld never works. Billions for defense, not a penny for tribute.
Peter
When the climate STOPS changing , THEN I’ll start worrying !!!!!
So when warming is discovered to be a net positive, do the poor socialists of the world owe us money?
What then is this “Carbon Pollution”?
A sinister, evil collusion?
CO2, it is clean,
Makes for growth, makes it green,
A transfer of wealth, a solution.
http://lenbilen.com/2014/02/22/co2-the-life-giving-gas-not-carbon-pollution-a-limerick-and-explanation/
I e-mailed Damon[ Dr. Matthews] to provide me with proof that CO2 released by burning fossil fuels is causing CAGW and here is the reply:
From: H. Damon Matthews [mailto:damon.matthews@concordia.ca]
Sent: Tuesday, September 08, 2015 6:52 PM
To: Al Shelton
Subject: Re: Where Is The Proof?
Proof is everywhere — you just need to be willing to see it.
Cheers
Damon
Ghosts are there too. You just have to be willing to see them.
And the zombies who are keeping this AGW “issue” alive!
Of course the overlooked concept of this entire article is that without the industrialized worlds historic levels of “carbon”, the rest of the world would be living under trees and remain hunter/gatherer societies with rampant poverty (far exceeding current levels) and widespread epidemics and famines. Ah, those pesky UN-intended consequences.
Frankly, this graph should be turned on its head and let the developing world know what they owe us for the advances in technology that sustains their hi population levels and increased standard of living.
I love Paris in the Springtime – the Winter – not so much……
What trees? Without fossil fuels, trees would be the go-to source for cooking and keeping warm.
Send in your carbon indulgence payments to NY today and receive a framed picture of Al Gore and the hurricane scare posted from the early years of carbon flim flam.