Whose job is it to stop climate change?… an answer in 2 graphs

Here’s the story of where responsibility lies to address the climate crisis in just 2 graphs.

First, let’s look at history.

The world’s richest countries have created more carbon emissions than other countries. The graph below shows the share of cumulative carbon emissions over history by the United States, China, and the United Kingdom, as well as by the countries Traidcraft Exchange works in – India, Bangladesh, Tanzania, and Kenya.

Countries which accrued their wealth in the 1800s and 1900s are responsible for the biggest share of the carbon emitted throughout history. The poorest countries in the world have hardly emitted any carbon.

We’ve chosen only a few countries to make the graph readable. The story is the same if you add other historically rich countries. The graph is a running total throughout history.

A graph showing that the United Kingdom created nearly all of the world’s cumulative carbon dioxide emissions in 1850. By 2017, the United Kingdom had created around 5% of the world’s cumulative emissions. The United States peaked at around 40% of cumulative global emissions in the 1950s and in 2017 was at 25%. Since the 1960s, China has started to create more of the world’s cumulative emissions, at around 12% by 2017. India has created around 3% of the world’s cumulative emissions.

Experiment with the source data for the graph.

What about today? What about trade?

You might be thinking that the UK is now a shining example of what an eco-friendly industrialised country should look like – and that China’s mass production of goods puts them at the other end of the spectrum.

Let’s look at a graph about trade. It points to one of the reasons why China emits a lot more carbon than the UK today.

Rich countries that have outsourced manufacturing import a lot more carbon per person than poorer countries.

A graph showing the carbon emissions imported or exported by several countries. The UK imports a lot more carbon per person than the United States, Kenya, Tanzania, Bangladesh, India, or China. China and India export carbon. Kenya, Tanzania, and Bangladesh export and import nearly the same amount.

Experiment with the source data for this graph.

International trade is just one of the causes of China’s carbon emissions. Other reasons include its enormous domestic market.

For its size, the UK imports a lot of goods where carbon was emitted during production. The UK imported just under half the carbon that the US did, but the UK’s population is a fifth of the USA.

The big question is whether the big importers and big exporters of carbon emissions can work together to reduce emissions.

Can China and other carbon exporters reduce the emissions embedded in the goods they produce and export?

Can the UK and other countries in the global North provide support to countries that are still reliant on carbon intensive processes to make these more sustainable? And can the UK be more honest about the scale of the problem of embedded emissions in products that we import?

One approach the UK could take would be to set a target to reduce imported emissions. The UK already has a target around domestic emissions. Care would be needed to ensure a just transition and not just to cut off poorer countries. The UK should support industrialising countries to make their processes cleaner rather than just refusing to trade with them.

One thing is clear. Extreme weather caused by carbon emissions hits the world’s poorest countries hardest. Those countries need action by the world’s richest countries to reduce the emissions they are responsible for, including emissions embedded in imported goods. The responsibility for change lies with everyone – but the world’s richest countries carry the greatest share.