In my newspaper (The Guardian) the other day they had a big spread giving the facts and figures of the world's carbon production country by country. They broke it down in several ways.
No surprise that the US has the biggest output - 5,957 million tonnes per annum. China is the fastest-growing emitter of CO2, up 87% between 1995 and 2005, and it now comes second with 5,323 million tonnes. Russia comes third with 1,696 million tonnes, but its growth was 5% in 1995-2005, whereas the US's was 13%. UK's emissions are 577 million tonnes, our increase 4%. We are 8th in the world, which is a disgrace for such a small island. Only Germany and Ukraine reduced their CO2 emissions in this period.
The biggest shocks come when you look at the production of CO2 per person. Way out front is Qatar, with nearly 62 tonnes per person per year (but it is 56th in total carbon production because of its small population). The Top 10 has four oil producing countries in it, all in the 30s. The US produces over 20 tonnes per person, the UK less than 10. Australia is just above the US in personal CO2 production, and is 15th in the world overall. The average world production per person is just 4.37 tonnes, so some of us are using way more than our fair share.
Since these figures only go up to 2005, I don't want to think about how much worse things might have become in the intervening two years.
Ironing? What's ironing? Apparently I'm already doing my bit there.
