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
Can we please stop referring to carbon dioxide (CO2) as ‘carbon’. Since it comprises two atoms of oxygen (2×16) against only 1 carbon (12) it comprises only 27% Carbon, but 73% Oxygen. If it MUST be abbreviated, surely it would be more logical to call it ‘oxygen’.
I propose we all do this now, and confuse the hell out of the bed-wetters.
SimonJ
Dear SimonJ (with request here to Anthony),
I agree entirely !
Dear Anthony / Mod.,
May I suggest a new (easy-to-read in plain English) LIST of PLAIN EXPRESSIONS.
(Rather like the “Glossary” page under the WUWT tab “Reference Pages”)
Here’s my thinking on this, with just e few examples here.
Take for example some very “Misleading Expressions” : there are dozens and dozens of them but here are just a few which really get my goat …
“Misleading Expressions”
Greens – Environmentalists – Clean Energy – Fossil Fuels – Climate Change – Skeptics – Warmists – carbon footprint – carbon capture – carbon (when really referring to CO2) – tipping point – biodiversity – 3rd. world country(s) – climate scientist – global temperature !!!
Each of the above fifteen (15) expressions is BLIND; they are also meaningless, shifty, vague or just plain nonsense.
They have each been criticized before now in various WUWT threads but I really think that some form of WUWT “glossary” or list of PLAIN EXPRESSIONS would be a mighty powerful weapon to have, especially because the strength of WUWT seems to depend upon its’ writers and the way they use their words.
Reason for my Suggestion
Carbon-dioxide is the ENTIRE basis for a corrupted belief system within and without the EPA.
Their system depends upon money, other peoples’ money (OPM) which they use in order to “perpetuate the myth”; therefore, until such time that they are brought to a complete halt, the world’s most viewed site on global warming (WUWT) has the power, through its’ many writers, to cut through all the nonsense and give the world (including the shyte-hawks who are watching and reading here) a fresh way of thinking using PLAIN EXPRESSIONS.
Regards,
WL
To avoid confusion I suggest “carbonated oxygen”
The ‘developed’ countries do not have any surplus dollars and most certainly do not have trillions of dollars to send to the developing countries to be spent on green scams that do not work.
Green scams triple the cost of electricity and result in almost no reduction in CO2 emissions if the energy input to construct the green scams and less grid efficiency due to on/off/on/off/on/off operation is taken into account. All the pain for no gain. The only solution that significantly reduces CO2 emissions is nuclear.
Spending more deficit money on green scams locally or sending more deficit money to other countries to spend on green scams will result in less money to spend on the never ending list of issues that need addressing, health care, infrastructure, education, welfare, policing, parks, developing country aid, military, and so on.
P.S.
Global warming is coming to an end. Propaganda does not affect the sun which is the cause of cyclic climate change and cyclic abrupt climate change.
NOAA has been propping up the sunspot number, trying to hide the fact that sunspots are disappearing (large long lasting sunspots have gradually been replaced with tiny short lived pores and finally no sunspots) which is different than a slowdown in the solar cycle, this is a once in roughly 8000 year solar event.
http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/assets/img/latest/latest_4096_4500.jpg
Last winter was a preview of what to expect. The warm blob off of the west coast will be replaced with a massive cold bob, same as is currently found in the North Atlantic ocean.
You ain’t seen nothing yet.
http://globalnews.ca/news/1856489/coldest-february-on-record-in-quebec/
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/ccgs-amundsen-re-routed-to-hudson-bay-to-help-with-heavy-ice-1.3162900
William, a fairly spotless sun, but yet there are impressive auroras continuing to occur:
http://www.space.com/30489-astronauts-space-station-auroras-video.html
The auroras are due to solar coronal holes which produce a steady stream of solar wind bursts. The coronal hole wind bursts create a space charge differential in the earth’s ionosphere which in turn causes a current flow from high latitude regions to the equator. The current flow changes cloud properties at both locations which causes warming and inhibits the GCR modulation of cloud cover.
The coronal holes are gradually shrinking and/or moving to high latitude regions on the sun where they no longer affect the earth. When there are no longer coronal holes in low latitude positions on the sun, the earth will cool.
Maybe the Québécois haven’t finished adjusting it yet.
Gloria,
The British also financed Napoleon via Barings Bank financing the Louisiana purchase for the US. The whole war on both sides financed therefore.
Well, let’s play the game, shall we? The USA built the Panama Canal. We should take credit for one trillion tons of carbon emissions, from all the fossil fuel that ship’s were able to save, by taking advantage of a shorter route. We’ve done our part, time for the rest of the world to catch up.
“Climate debt” sounds like a phrase straight out of Orwell. Next will be the creation of a Ministry of Climate Debt.
542 million years of life on land is proof CO2 has no effect on climate. http://agwunveiled.blogspot.com
Oddly such approaches should be encouraged becasue the politicians of those with ‘debts’ know that the idea of given huge amounts of money to those with ‘credit ‘ its total vote killer , and there is NOTHING they like less than a vote killer .
So by all means try to enforce such ideas for they will nothing but harm to the ’cause of CAGW’ the author of this paper stands for .
The madder the ideas , the more fanatical the stance and the more extreme the claims being made the better it is for sceptics, for one of the short comings of the CAGW ‘faithful’ is their inability to give credit to the people in there ability to see and smell such total BS .
This is why people like Mann need to be kept in the public spot light and under-pressure, as they simply cannot stop themselves from taking aim at their own feet.
highbrow masochism.
delegated down as numerological compulsive neuroses:
return to sender.
Hans
it never was about ‘settled science’ since ‘science’ is a noword in the green universe: a taboo.
It was always connecting ‘deep feelings’ to financial interests – interests dominating feelings and taboos.
Hans
This is dumb. Australia is a net carbon sink. Natural processes across the continent more than compensate for any man made co2 emissions.
So let’s go to the president of Ethiopia and tell him he will be paid for the “social cost” of the 0.5C of warming. This will be calculated by regression analysis based on measures like food production, rain and GDP to temperatures. (Any correlation with be small.)
But he will owe us 18% of any crops. That’s the excess growth attributed to CO2.
Then we’ll see what the true social cost is – he would have no trouble taking the deal if CO2 is a net negative.
Incidentally, Addis Ababa is the “ground zero” of warming – just before Paris it warmed by 20C relative to its average. In mid winter, Bole Airport (at 3000m) now bakes with the temperature of a Bahrain summer. And being the only weather station, it accounts for a huge blob of record temp in the terrestrial datasets.
From India’s perspective there is additional eye rolling. Although India comes out as the least CO2 emitter Green plans for COP21 are to restrict exactly India the most to produce a bit more CO2, without giving it the needed money and/or free technology to do that. It basically means that the 300 million poor without (reliable) electricity have to stay in the stone age to enable others abroad to continue the digital wave. India needs cleaner coal burning installations, particularly for small particles IMHO.
PR China goes scot-free in Green eyes after its promise to maybe peak CO2 in 2030, whatever their actual CO2 emissions. Future Chinese projections are accepted as Gospel Truths. Autocratic China is the Green’s darling, specially in Australia. Indian Communists used to get money under the table from the USSR, I wonder if something similar is happening in Left Australia today reg. China.