Expecting a rush of perambulatory politicians banging on my front door, I wanted to look up a couple of statistics to wave in their faces as I barrack them for their stupidity (taking their support for Net Zero as implied, until they either terminate the interview by running away screaming or make claims to opposing their party’s position).
It occurred to me that I should share these numbers, so that you, dear Cliscep reader, will have them to hand should a politician knock on your door. Naturally, we may assume that our prospective candidates are immune to data. But we can try.
The data on GHG emissions come from EDGAR via Wiki and are therefore a resource whose provenance is easy to check. They are territorial emissions, and include divers minor GHG as well as the core unit of CO2. The GDP figures are from the World Bank (2015$).
What Guilt Sits on the UK’s Shoulders?
The first figure shows global GHG emissions in 2022. According to EDGAR, this quantity was 53,786,039 kt CO2eq for the year. This figure is represented by the black circle. The other circles show, to scale, the emissions of three other selected countries. The figures are as follows:
China: 15,684,627 kt CO2eq. 29.16% of global total.
USA: 6,017,443 kt CO2eq. 11.19% of global total.
UK: 426,562 kt CO2eq. 0.79% of global total.
But Jit, I hear you cry, this is not a fair comparison! Those other countries are much larger than the UK, so of course they have higher emissions! All right, dammit. Stand by.
What guilt sits on the shoulders of the people of the UK?
This figure shows per capita GHG emissions as t CO2eq in 2022. The figures for the select countries are:
China: 10.95 t CO2eq/cap.
USA: 17.90 t CO2eq/cap.
UK: 6.27 t CO2eq/cap.
I have shown the top 21 GHG emitting countries here, in descending order. (The UK now ranks 21st.) The red line shows the global average per capita emissions, which the UK is now comfortably below. A single average person in the USA has almost the footprint of three Brits.
How have things changed in the past 30 years?
Which countries can demonstrate some sort of effort to rein in their “excesses”? This figure shows 2022’s per capita GHG emissions for each of the 21 countries as a percentage of their 1990 emissions. The red line shows 100% = no change since 1990. We may note here that no countries have made such an effort to cut their emissions as has the UK. (Yes, this is unfair on developing countries.)
The figures are:
China: 385% of 1990 per capita emissions.
USA: 97.6% of 1990 per capita emissions.
UK: 54.3% of 1990 per capita emissions.
(In case you were wondering, Germany’s figure is 63.5%.)
Now, remember, these are territorial emissions. Of course, as countries develop, they may follow a sequence along the lines of:
Swords ’n’ sandals -> Boiler suits ’n’ hard hats -> laptops ’n’ lattes.
This is reflected by a weaker than you might think relationship between GDP and GHG emissions: there are some – ahem – legacy countries like the UK, which maintain a high per capita GDP despite having made serious dents in their GHG emissions. However, I would argue that this is a misleading picture. Consider as an analogy a café, whose workers are of the laptops ’n’ lattes class; the café has a high GDP, but low GHG emissions. But someone has to build the laptops, and someone has to build the lattes – I mean, produce the coffee. The laptop builders and coffee producers cannot join the laptops ’n’ lattes class without the system falling over. The UK has moved away from a GHG-intensive economy, but it is not possible for the world to do so. If we all become laptop-latte class, there will be no laptops, no coffee, and no café.
The final figure shows the GHG intensity of the economies of the same 21 countries, in $ per t CO2eq. Remember, the stated aim of the UK is to reach $∞/t CO2eq. The only way this can work is if we mine nothing, grow nothing, and build nothing.
Wait a minute. Am I not using the admitted success of the UK’s “decarbonisation” policies (yuk) to argue for their impossibility? Look how far we’ve come, but we’ll never make it the last 54.3% of the way? Well, remember the point about the territorial emissions. Our “success” has been permitted by someone else’s (China’s) “failure.” It’s quite obvious that if the UK was a closed system, we would have failed by now. [Just as if we were a closed food system, two thirds of us would starve.]
I would argue that the figures here show that:
- The UK’s absolute contribution to GHG emissions is negligible [within the territorial parameters].
- We are now below the global average for per-capita emissions [ditto].
- Other countries that are fond of lecturing us on our responsibilities have far more to answer for than we do, both in absolute and relative terms [yes, this is tu quoque].
- Following on, there is no argument for unilateral Net Zero other than a bizarre moral one. If instead we chose a multilateral version of the policy, where all countries move together, then we would be far out in front of all the major economies. In this comfortable position, we could wait for them to catch us up, or at least show willing, before we had to make any further cuts.
Who are you going to vote for, Jit? I am in an uncomfortable position. I do not know who I will vote for, but I will not vote for any candidate who does not repudiate Net Zero. That is my promise to myself.
No to Net Zero.
No to National Suicide.
Climate Scepticism 
That’s beautifully done Jit, very many thanks. Of course there’s far too much data here for the average knocker on my door – but more than enough to get them to run away screaming.
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Yes, nice and clear, and simple enough for even a political campaigner to understand. I shall keep it to hand, though nobody has yet knocked on my door (I suspect even the Tories were taken by surprise at the news that turkeys have voted for an early Christmas).
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JIT If you find no one to vote for that repudiates Net Zero, and spoil your vote, is that not also contributing to “national suicide”? So my alternative? I am ashamed to say that I have no alternative. Politics, like Life, is a bitch!
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Alan, I’ll comment on my voting intention on the Net Zero Policy thread in 3, 2, 1…
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UK figures look “better” for being “territorial”. That point is well made, but as it is such a key point, it would be good to have an estimate to quote for what they would be if we didn’t outsource and were to repatriate production..
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Good effort Jit. Sadly here may be fewer perambulatory politicians with whom we can all discuss the emission stats than there might have been – if this story from The Times is right
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Richard, I have not seen any signs yet locally that there is an election afoot, let alone spotted any perambulatory politicians. There are no boards out and no posters. It’s a little eerie. However, watching Tube yesterday, the algorithm inflicted upon me a 14s advert from the local Labour candidate. [AdBlock not working for some reason.] [Watching (listening) to this episode of the Brendan O’Neill Show with Jonathan Haidt.] [Refreshing that page, I got Rishi’s “Why I am calling a General Election.”]
Side note: 3 of 209 episodes of the Brendan O’Neill Show are hidden because they are unavailable. No idea why.
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Max, if you go to this Our World in Data page, it shows estimates of consumption vs territorial emissions. The last year available is 2021, and the UK’s [CO2] emissions were:
Territorial: 347.47 Mt
Consumption + Territorial: 513.4 Mt
The “exported” emissions on this metric amount to about a 50% increase on our territorial emissions. I have been lax in claiming that the UK is at or below average per capita emissions, because that is only true if you do not account for imported goods. [We do a lot of importing.]
It’s a topic that deserves more coverage, that’s for sure.
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Jit, I just started that Haidt video, thanks for the incidental mention. Tragic effect of tech. And also perhaps why we won’t ever see so many MPs on the doorstep, just those pesky ads.
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You have put a lot of work into this Jit. Some of the data, especially GHG emissions in CO2 equivalents, is very hard to come by. However, the message is simple. UK net zero policy is not part of a successful global emissions policy, so is useless from any “climate” point of view.
I’ll go ahead and elaborate, with some figures. The UNEP Emissions Gap Report 2018 (based on the then-recently published IPCC SR1.5) made the following header comment in the Executive Summary.
In basic GtCO2e numbers, the 2030 targets are 24 for 1.5oC and 40 for 2oC. The EGR 2022 estimate for 2030 was 56. EGR 2023 estimated global emissions at a new record of 57.6 GtCO2e – slightly higher than the EDGAR estimate of 53.8. The conclusion is global emissions reduction policies conducted by the UN have failed.
As Jit points out the UK makes an insignificant part of global emissions. But how insignificant? Let us have two UK extremes. One is UK net zero by 2030. My low-cost option is to build coal-fired power stations with particulate scrubbers quickly. So by 2030 UK emissions may have climbed to the 2015 levels of 0.4957 GtCO2e. Range is thus 0 to 0.5.
Put this against the UNEP 2030 forecast of 56 for 2030 alongside actual estimates of 53.5 in 2017 and 57.6 in 2022. The 56 is optimistic. A range of 55-62 is more reasonable. So a difference of 0.5 is properly insignificant. If a claim equivalent to “the UK is combatting climate change” were made in selling a financial product it would be deemed fraudulent.
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Taking ’emissions’ seriously is pointless anyway. Carbon dioxide levels have been a lot higher for the bulk of Earth’s history. We should be asking why they’re so low.
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Indeed Oldbrew. I point you to an old effort of mine on this topic.
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Oldbrew, JIT. Although there are several methods used to evaluate ancient CO2 values (which are mostly accepted) methods to determine past climates are far less certain. Yes red beds, especially when associated with evaporites, are universally attributed to hot arid climates, but in such circumstances CO2 values at such times are commonly difficult to determine. I would have believed that coal measures would be associated with relatively high CO2 values but as was discussed in JIT’s thread (by me and JIT) the Late Carboniferous CO2 values have been identified by some as being on the low side.
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