Although it appeared a little after the traditional pantomime season, the latest articleⁱ in the Guardian to fuel my ire, did make me think of pantomime, for reasons which, dear reader, will become apparent if you read on.

I’m talking about this: “West accused of ‘climate hypocrisy’ as emissions dwarf those of poor countries – Average Briton produces more carbon in two days than Congolese person does in entire year, study finds”. It appeared on the Guardian’s website on 28^th January 2022, and in turn was prompted by “A New Year’s Resolution on the US’s Climate Hypocrisy”, which appeared on the websiteⁱⁱ of the Center for Global Development on 7^th January 2022. Or you can read the UK version, with virtually the same title (A New Year’s Resolution on the UK’s Climate Hypocrisyⁱⁱⁱ).

These two paragraphs from the Guardian article sum up what it’s all about:

The study, which highlights the “vast energy inequality” between rich and poor countries countries [sic], found that each Briton produces 200 times the climate emissions of the average Congolese person, with people in the US producing 585 times as much. By the end of January, the carbon emitted by someone living in the UK will surpass the annual emissions of citizens of 30 low- and middle-income countries, it found.

Euan Ritchie, a policy analyst at CGD Europe, said his work was prompted by the “climate hypocrisy” of western countries, including the UK and the US, that have pledged to stop aid funding to fossil fuel projects in developing states.

And no doubt it is fair – very fair indeed – to point out that the per capita GHG emissions of US and UK citizens are massively higher than those of poor developing countries, mostly in Africa and Asia. However, why single out the USA and UK? Why not mention EU countries, for instance? As the EDGAR website^iv makes clear, UK per capita emissions have declined more rapidly than those of the EU, and from a higher level in 1990. They were, by 2019 (the last date available on the database) lower than those of the EU.

But most tellingly, why not talk about China’s emissions? On a per capita basis, over the same time scale, far from reducing, they have quadrupled. Not just quadrupled, but overtaken quite substantially those of the EU, and now exceeding the per capita emissions of UK citizens by almost 50%. Iceland, curiously for a country with great geothermal resources, has per capita CO2 emissions at twice those of the UK, and they have increased by close to 25% since 1990. In fact, there are plenty of unlikely candidates in the list of high per capita emitters. The following countries (as of 2019) all have per capita emissions at least twice as high as those of the UK:

Australia; Barbados; Bahrain; Brunei; Canada; China; Curacao; Estonia; Gibraltar; Iceland; Kazakhstan; Luxembourg; Mongolia; New Caledonia; Oman; Palau; Qatar; Russia; Saudia Arabia; Seychelles; South Korea; Taiwan; Trinidad & Tobago; Turkmenistan; United Arab Emirates; and USA.

There is a very long list indeed (too long to mention here in detail) of countries with per capita emissions below the above level but ahead of the UK’s. By the way, who would have thought it? The winners, by a country mile, in the above list, are New Caledonia and Palau.

And let’s talk about cumulative emissions^v while we’re at it. Again, we find China in second place (with 12.7%), behind only the USA (admittedly way out in front, with 25%). Russia is on 6% and Japan is on 4%. Even South Africa is on 1.3%. According to Carbon Brief^vi the UK lies in just 8^th place, behind the USA, China, Russia, Brazil, Indonesia, Germany and India, with Japan and Canada not far behind.

So why pick on the UK? In 8^th place in terms of cumulative emissions, and well down the pecking order in both total national emissions and per capita emissions. China and Russia (as examples) are well ahead of the UK on any measure, and India is ahead in terms of cumulative and annual emissions. Why does the article (and that on which it is based) ignore them?

Especially given this statement:

“Solving the climate crisis in the medium term is the responsibility of high emitting countries, not only because they caused the problem but logically, it’s where high emissions are concentrated,” said Mutiso, who is Kenyan.

That would be China, then (and increasingly India).

I loved this quote from the Guardian article, by the way, a good point on which to end:

“It’s well known renewable energy is intermittent and needs to be backed up by other sources. Telling African countries they just need solar is completely hypocritical and colonial.”

But it’s OK, apparently, to insist that the UK has to rely on intermittent renewable energy despite the fact that solar power at this latitude is a joke in winter, at the time when energy is most needed. The irony appears to pass the Guardian by completely.

Conclusion

The thing about pantomimes is that the audience can see the villains all too clearly while those prancing about on the stage either can’t (or perhaps more accurately) pretend not to see them. There are times when the debate about climate change looks increasingly like a pantomime.

Endnotes

i https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/jan/28/west-accused-of-climate-hypocrisy-as-emissions-dwarf-those-of-poor-countries

ii https://www.cgdev.org/blog/new-years-resolution-us-climate-hypocrisy

iii https://www.cgdev.org/blog/new-years-resolution-uk-climate-hypocrisy

iv https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/report_2020#emissions_table

v https://ourworldindata.org/contributed-most-global-co2

vi https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-which-countries-are-historically-responsible-for-climate-change