{"id":7619,"date":"2020-01-13T08:16:29","date_gmt":"2020-01-13T08:16:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=7619"},"modified":"2022-08-23T09:05:36","modified_gmt":"2022-08-23T09:05:36","slug":"how-huge-is-the-uks-share-of-historical-co2-emissions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2020\/01\/13\/how-huge-is-the-uks-share-of-historical-co2-emissions\/","title":{"rendered":"How huge is the UK's share of historical CO2 emissions?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In its end of year round-up, UKSCN included the following paragraph:<\/p>\n

\n
\"We are looking to COP26 in Glasgow as an opportunity to shed a light on the UK\u2019s lack of climate ambition. \u00a0As a country responsible for a huge share of historical emissions and colonial atrocities<\/span>, we must also show international solidarity with those who will be travelling from all over the globe to demand action from world leaders, through hosting activists, helping run Conference of the Youth (COY16) and organising mass mobilisations.\"<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\n
Given that there\u2019s a need to draw people into the movement, using tendentious phrases such as \"colonial atrocities<\/span>\"<\/span>\u00a0will not help. \u00a0Someone with a sense of audience should be watching this.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
But anyway, just how\u00a0<\/span>\u201c<\/span>huge\u201d is our share of historical emissions? \u00a0Given that 50% of the CO2 has been put there since the 1st Earth Summit in 1992, and the UK is now a bit player (<2%) it cannot be all that big, as this graph<\/a> confirms.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Looking at WRI<\/a> data<\/a> published in the Guardian<\/a>\u00a0on emissions between 1900 and 2004, the UK's share of this was 5%. \u00a0The USA had 30%, Russia, 8%, Germany 7%, and\u00a0Japan 4%.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Given that emissions before 1900 were tiny, compared to today, that will not increase the UK's 5% figure by much, if at all.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
That doesn't look too huge to me. \u00a0So maybe the UK's problem is a matter of original sin. \u00a0Because we started the industrial revolution, numbers don't matter and we are now expected to bear a heavy responsibility and expiate our guilt. \u00a0But it's not really our fault as the\u00a0industrial revolution would have begun somewhere else at a later point if it hadn't been started here.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In its end of year round-up, UKSCN included the following paragraph: \"We are looking to COP26 in Glasgow as an opportunity to shed a light on the UK\u2019s lack of climate ambition. \u00a0As a country responsible for a huge share...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7619\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}