Latest study by the Center for Global Development (CGD) shows that in the first two days of January, the average Briton was already responsible for more carbon dioxide emissions than someone from the Democratic Republic of the Congo would produce in an entire year.
The study found that each Briton produces 200 times the climate emissions of the average Congolese person, with people in the US producing 585 times as much, highlighting the “vast energy inequality” between rich and poor countries.
It showed that by the end of January, the carbon emitted by someone living in the UK will surpass the annual emissions of citizens of 30 low- and middle-income countries.
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According to Euan Ritchie who undertook the study, it works was prompted by the “climate hypocrisy” of Western countries, including the UK and the US, that have pledged to stop aid funding to fossil fuel projects in developing states.
Ritchie, a policy analyst at CGD Europe said, “At Cop26 there was lots of hand-wringing by rich countries about the extent to which aid and other development finance should finance fossil fuels in poorer countries,”. “The hypocrisy of this caught my attention.”
He explained that the analysis shows that in just a few days, the average person in the UK produces more climate emissions than people in many low-income countries do in an entire year.
“It would be a cruel irony if the countries that have least contributed to this problem won’t be able to have access to energy infrastructure,” he said.
Although several countries, including some developing countries and financial institutions, have signed up to a pledge to end public support for international fossil fuel projects, the same countries will be able to continue to develop fossil fuels at home.
While the US has at least 24 pending fossil fuel projects representing more than 1.6 gigatons of potential greenhouse gas emissions, the UK is licensing new oil and gas fields in the North Sea.
The CGD research used World Bank data of per capita carbon emissions for each country, spread out over a year, to calculate the point at which a British or US citizen’s energy use surpassed that of someone living in a low- or middle-income country.
