COP 27, loss and damage, and the reality of Carbon emissions

The soundbites from the widely acclaimed success of COP 27, especially around the creation of a loss and damage fund (see UNCC Introduction to loss and damage), made me look once more at the realities of global CO₂ emissions to see which countries are actually generating the most CO₂, which are improving their performance, and which are suffering most. Sadly, this only made me appreciate yet again that the over-simplifications that occur during so many UN gatherings such as COP appear to be more about political correctness and claiming success than they do about developing real solutions to some of the most difficult challenges facing the world.

The UN Climate Press Release on 20 November summarised the outcomes relating to the fund as follows: “Governments took the ground-breaking decision to establish new funding arrangements, as well as a dedicated fund, to assist developing countries in responding to loss and damage… Parties also agreed on the institutional arrangements to operationalize the Santiago Network for Loss and Damage, to catalyze technical assistance to developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change”.

Unfortunately, it is not quite as easy as it might seem to validate the claim underlying this that it is the rich countries who do most of the pollution and should therefore compensate the poor countries where the most harmful damages from CO₂ occur (see, for example, ThePrint, India; UN News, noting that “Developing countries made strong and repeated appeals for the establishment of a loss and damage fund, to compensate the countries that are the most vulnerable to climate disasters, yet who have contributed little to the climate crisis”; and BBC News, “A historic deal has been struck at the UN’s COP27 summit that will see rich nations pay poorer countries for the damage and economic losses caused by climate change”). How should it be decided, for example, which countries should be donors to this fund, and which should be beneficiaries from it? Pakistan, which led much of the discussion around the need for richer countries to fund the poorer ones, was actually the 27th largest global emitter of CO₂ in 2019; China was the largest contributor, and India the 3rd largest.

The Table below, drawing on World Bank data (2022), gives the various rankings of the top 30 countries in terms of CO2 emissions per capita in 2019, and CO₂ total emissions in 1990 and 2019, as well as the change in ranking of the latter two columns.

Rank	Country	CO2 metric tons per capita 2019	Country	CO2 total emissions kt 1990	Country	CO2 total emissions kt 2019	Change in rank 1990-2019
1	Qatar	32.474	United States	4844520	China	10707219.7	+1
2	Kuwait	22.022	China	2173360	United States	4817720.21	-1
3	Bahrain	20.266	Russian Federation	2163530	India	2456300.05	+4
4	United Arab Emirates	19.330	Japan	1090530	Russian Federation	1703589.97	-1
5	Brunei Darussalam	16.132	Germany	955310	Japan	1081569.95	-1
6	Canada	15.431	Ukraine	688620	Germany	657400.024	-1
7	Luxembourg	15.306	India	563580	Iran, Islamic Rep.	630010.01	+12
8	Saudi Arabia	15.285	United Kingdom	561770	Indonesia	619840.027	+16
9	Oman	15.282	Canada	538661	Korea, Rep.	610789.978	+6
10	Australia	15.238	Italy	532860	Canada	580210.022	-1
11	United States	14.673	France	356240	Saudi Arabia	523780.029	+11
12	Palau	13.888	Poland	350210	Mexico	449269.989	+2
13	Trinidad and Tobago	12.323	Mexico	269580	South Africa	439640.015	+3
14	Turkmenistan	12.263	Australia	263630	Brazil	434299.988	+6
15	Korea, Rep.	11.799	Korea, Rep.	247680	Turkiye	396839.996	+11
16	Russian Federation	11.797	South Africa	247660	Australia	386529.999	-2
17	Kazakhstan	11.457	Kazakhstan	237250	United Kingdom	348920.013	-9
18	Czechia	9.820	Spain	214950	Vietnam	336489.99	+59
19	Japan	8.541	Iran, Islamic Rep.	198470	Italy	317239.99	-8
20	Netherlands	8.504	Brazil	197900	France	300519.989	-9
21	Libya	8.381	Romania	172630	Poland	295130.005	-9
22	Singapore	8.307	Saudi Arabia	171410	Thailand	267089.996	+11
23	Belgium	8.096	Czechia	150200	Malaysia	253270.004	+23
24	Malaysia	7.927	Indonesia	148530	Egypt, Arab Rep.	249369.995	+10
25	Germany	7.912	Netherlands	148380	Spain	239979.996	-7
26	Poland	7.774	Turkiye	139200	Kazakhstan	212110.001	-9
27	Estonia	7.672	Korea, DPR	123330	Pakistan	190570.007	+15
28	China	7.606	Uzbekistan	117770	United Arab Emirates	188860.001	+16
29	Iran, Islamic Rep.	7.598	Belgium	109310	Ukraine	174729.996	-22
30	South Africa	7.508	Venezuela, RB	101630	Iraq	174559.998	+9

Many important observations can be made from these figures, and I highlight just a few below:

Per capita emissions

• The highest per capita emitters are generally those in countries with recently developed hydrocarbon-based economies, such as Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, the UAE and Brunei Darussalam, and generally not in the old rich industrial economies of Europe.
• Surprisingly, quite a few European countries such as the UK, Denmark and Spain (ranked 52nd-54th) actually lie well outside the top 30 highest emitters
• The twelve lowest per capita emitters for which data are available (not shown here) are all African countries.
• There are many fewer countries above the world average, at 4.47 metric tons per capita (which would rank 61st) and many more ranked beneath it, implying that the highest emitters are much higher than the lowest are low: Qatar at 32.47, has 28 metric tons per person more than the average; yet, 55 countries have emissions per capita of <1 metric ton.

Total emissions

• 60% of total CO₂ emission are generated by people living in five countries (China, 31.18%, the United States 14.03%, India 7.15%, the Russian Federation 7.15%, and Japan 3.15%). Eleven further countries, all producing more than 350,000 kt CO₂ annually account for a further 16.68% of emissions. More than three-quarters of emissions in 2019 were therefore from people in just 16 countries.
• Those countries with the lowest total emissions are nearly all small island states (SIDS; not shown in the Table), but note that these were not necessarily the lowest per capita emitters.
• The changes in total emissions since 1990 are also very interesting. The highest increases within the top 30 were Indonesia (+16) and Iran (+12), although much higher risers came into the top 30 from below, including Vietnam (+59), Malaysia (+23), UAE (+16) and Pakistan (+15).

These data do not make easy reading for policy makers, campaigners and the UN system as a whole, all of whom like to have simple answers and short soundbites. The world is unfortunately too complex and messy for these. As the world’s popultion passes 8 billion (2.8 times what it was when I was born), population growth is the dominant factor in determining total country-based emissions, but economic growth (following the US-led carbon-based capitalist mode of production) has also played a significant part. The big risers in total emissions are countries with large populations and/or with high economic growth rates over the last 30 years. Neither of these should be surprising. Poor countries, with low economic growth and relatively small populations are never likely to be amongst the largest consumers of energy. Overall, the biggest factor determining total CO₂ emissions over the last century, and especially in the last 50 years, has been human population growth (see my recent post on “climate change”). Moreover, there has for long been an intricate and complex relationships between humans and carbon: the carbon cycle and the production of oxygen are essential for human life, and our economic systems have also been driven by carbon as a fuelfor centuries. These complexities make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to argue that we need to create two groups of countries: one being the recipients of funding (from a loss and damage financial facility), and the other being contributors to it. Instead, we need to work collaboratively together to transform the underying factors causing environmental change, of which CO₂ emissions are actually only but a small part.

That is not, though, to say that there should not be much greater global effort to work together to resolve the environmental problems caused by our centuries old carbon-based economy (as well as those caused by so-called renewable energy). It is also completely separate from moral arguments suggesting that there should be a shift in wealth distribution from the rich to the poor. However, these should not be conflated into over-simplistic statements and assertions about responsibililty for climate change, such as those being promoted by UN agencies and mainstream media at the end of COP 27. It is also to reassert that we need to work together with renewed vigour collaboratively across sectors and disciplines to understand better the complex interactions that humans have with the environments in which we live, and then to make wise decisions how to implement them in the interests of all the world’s peoples and not just those of the rich and privileged parts of the world.

The above draft was written on 21 November 2022 (and has been revised slightly subsequently)

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In response to the above, Olof Hesselmark kindly asked why I had not added further details also about the spatial distribution of CO₂ emissions – something that as a geographer I care greatly about! I responded that I hadn’t wanted to complicate matters further, but also that I guess it was because I am aware in my own mind of these spatial distributions, and the country names (and sizes) are in-built into my consciousness! However, they do add an important additional element of complexity to the discussion, and I am delighted that he has agreed for me to add his slightly cropped map of CO₂ emissions per sq km below:

I’m not entirely sure which projection this is, but my preference for such maps is Eckert IV, or other equal area projections such as Gall-Peters or Mollweide that place less visual emphasis on the apparent size of countries in high latitudes. This map nevertheless highlights the varying densities of emissions, with China, Europe and the USA being high, and Africa and Latin America being low. It should also be emphasised that there are enormous differences within countries, as well as between them, with urban-industrial environments generally being much higher in their CO₂ emissions than sparsely settled rural ones.

A different perspective once again is thus from the Smithsonian Magazine‘s 2009s map below (carbon emissions from 1997-2010), which does indeed show how a very few areas contribute the largest amount of CO₂ emissions.

Update 22 November 2022