Who are the main carbon polluters?

Resource use and responsibility

The graphic below shows that just 8 countries - the world's 7 leading economies (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States) plus Russia, also known as the G8 - pumped out nearly half (48.7%) of world carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions in 1999.

Industrialised countries have the responsibility to begin the process of emission reductions because:

• They are currently and historically the largest emitters of CO₂.
• Their per capita emissions are many times higher than those of developing countries.
• They have the finance and the technologies to kick-start energy-saving and clean energy industries.

CO₂ emissions per capita

The following graphic shows how much CO₂ was emitted per head of population in 1998 in a selection of 15 industrialized and developing countries. The global average was 3.85 tonnes of CO₂ per capita - a level far exceeded by industrialised nations.

Critics of the Kyoto Protocol complain that there are no emission reduction or limitation commitments for developing countries.

However, the understanding that industrialised countries should act first dates from 1992, before the Protocol, and is contained in Article 3.1 of the Climate Convention: " …developed country Parties should take the lead in combating climate change".

The graphic underlines why this is entirely reasonable.

Source: CO₂ emissions data for 2003 from Energy Information Administration, US Department of Energy: World Carbon Dioxide Emissions from the Consumption and Flaring of Fossil Fuels, 1980-2003 (only CO₂)


President Bush must know that it is unrealistic to expect developing nations to take on binding commitments to reduce their already limited emissions until the big polluters have demonstrated their willingness to act.

It is also unfair. The average American accounts for more than 23 times more CO₂ per year than the average Indian. Expecting the developing world to now take the same steps against CO₂ emissions as the wealthy and technologically-advanced industrialised nations would, in the most extreme example, be to place the survival emissions of peasant farmers in the South on a par with the luxury emissions from sports utility vehicles cruising the shopping malls of America.

It's time to act now

The beginning of the 21st century is a pivotal time for industrialised nations to break the pattern of unsustainable resource use and pollution that characterised the past. The date 2010 falls in the middle of the so-called first 'commitment period' (2008-2012) agreed in the Kyoto Protocol, at the end of which signatory industrialised nations should have reduced their emissions by 5.2% below their 1990 levels. By this time WWF wants to see the rich nations accelerating their efforts to halt global warming.