NatWestMentor.co.uk: Although the ignominy of being the main cause of man-made pollution has sat firmly with the United States since 1990, China is now close to overtaking them. According to separate experts in both the United States and Norway, China's cumulative greenhouse gas emissions since 1990, the year when governments became more aware of climate change, will outstrip those of the United States in 2015 or 2016. The shift, which reflects China's astronomical economic growth, raises questions about historical blame for rising temperatures and more floods, desertification, heatwaves and sea level rises.
In 1992, a U.N. principle decreed that rich nations were meant to take the lead in cutting greenhouse gas emissions because their wealth, based predominantly on burning coal, oil and natural gas had been prevalent since the 18th century Industrial Revolution. Emerging nations, meanwhile, were allowed to burn more fossil fuels to allow them to catch up and end poverty. But the rapid economic rise of China, India, Brazil and many other emerging nations is straining the traditional divide between rich and poor. The World Resources Institute think-tank, based in the United States, has estimated that China's cumulative carbon dioxide emissions will total 151 billion tonnes for 1990-2016, overtaking their own country’s total of 147 billion next year. India will overtake Russia's cumulative emissions since 1990 in the 2020s to rank fourth behind China, the United States and the European Union, according to Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research, Oslo (CICERO) calculations.
Governments of almost 200 nations are now working out plans for a climate summit in Paris in December that will set targets for 2025 or 2030. Beijing set a goal last year of peaking its rising emissions around 2030, perhaps before.
Commenting for Mentor Jerry Hill, Head of Safety, Health and Environmental consultancy Support said:
"A few years ago China's per capita emissions were low, and consequently, its historical responsibility was low. But that’s now changing fast."
"The rise of cumulative emissions obviously does open China up to claims of responsibility from other developing countries, but stretching liability so far back is complicated."
"Should heat-trapping methane gas emitted by rice paddies in Asia in the 19th century, now omitted from the figures, count alongside industrial carbon emissions by Europe? Should Britain be responsible for India's emissions before independence in 1947?"
