World Carbon Emissions from Fossil Fuels and the required reduction line in ClimatePositions (emissions of three country groups by Climate Debt)

24 Apr
World Carbon Emissions from Fossil Fuels and the required reduction line in ClimatePositions (emissions of three country groups by Climate Debt)

If all 97 countries with Climate Debt (see the ‘Ranking‘), had cut national emissions as required in ClimatePositions, then World Carbon Emissions would have dropped significantly as demonstrated in the diagram below. World Carbon Emissions from Fossil Fuels (without bunker¹) and cement amounted a total of 312 GtC (Gigaton Carbon) between 1960 and 2015 … however with the required cuts, emissions would have been 270 GtC, or 14% less … and no countries would have Climate Debt.

Recent analysis² suggest a small 0.2% growth of emission in 2016 compared to 2015 – and that four more years of current emissions “would be enough to blow what’s left of the carbon budget for a good chance of keeping global temperature rise to 1.5C.” Not so smart!

The graphs below show Carbon Emissions from Fossil Fuels (without bunker) and cement, 2000-2015, divided into four country-groups:

  1.  Black graph: 159 countries with full data in ClimatePositions 2015.
  2.  Red graph: 55 countries with Climate Debt higher than $500 per capita.
  3.  Green graph: 42 countries with Climate Debt between $1 and $499.
  4.  Blue graph: 62 countries without Climate Debt.

The first group (159 countries) represents 99.9% of World Population responsible for 98.4% of World Carbon Emissions. Not surprisingly, the second group (large Climate Debts) are responsible for 77% of emissions representing only 39% of World Population – note that this group dropped emissions by 1.0% since 2013.

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¹Bunker emissions was about 3% of World Carbon Emissions from Fossil Fuels and cement in 2015.

²Carbon Brief: ‘Analysis: Just four years left of the 1.5°C carbon budget‘ (April 2017), and: ‘Analysis: What global emissions in 2016 mean for climate change goals‘ (November 2016).

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Data on carbon emissions (CO2 Emissions) from fossil fuels (without bunkers) and cement production are from Global Carbon Project (CDIAC); (links in the menu Calculations / Sources & Links).
Data on national and global Populations is from Worldbank (links in the menu Calculations / Sources & Links).
Drawing by Claus Andersen 2017.

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