4 Reasons We Can’t Blame Developing Countries for Carbon Emissions
Those opposed to taking climate action love to point fingers at other countries as a way of passing off responsibility.
“Our country, the United States is the world’s largest emitter of manmade greenhouse gases. We account for almost 20 percent of the world’s man-made greenhouse emissions. We also account for about one-quarter of the world’s economic output. We recognize the responsibility to reduce our emissions. We also recognize the other part of the story — that the rest of the world emits 80 percent of all greenhouse gases. And many of those emissions come from developing countries.”
— George W. Bush, 2001
But here’s why no matter how much bliss ignorance brings us, developing countries are not to blame for global carbon emissions.
1. Comparing apples to apples
Rather than compare a country’s total emissions to another, we should look at per capita emissions instead — how much we’re emitting per person.
In 2020, the U.S. population was 331 million while China’s was 1.4 billion, for instance. We’d be comparing an apple to a watermelon.
But if we look at per capita emissions for 2019 (pre-lockdowns), the U.S. was averaging 16.6 tonnes per person while China averaged 7 tonnes per person. Apples to apples.
2. Outsourcing emissions
Developed countries outsource so much of their energy-intensive industries to developing countries that it’s hard to determine just how much of those countries’ total emissions are from producing for others.
Can you imagine what the share of emissions by country would look like if emissions from outsourced production were to be allocated back to their respective countries?
3. Climate lag
Just like how the oven doesn’t immediately get hot the second we turn it on, global temperatures don’t immediately change as we adjust the dial on emissions.
It takes time, and by time, we’re talking decades. A.k.a. climate inertia.
So even if a few developing countries have become top emitters in recent years, they weren’t the biggest contributors to the effects of climate change that we’re experiencing today. But let’s not point fingers…
4. Industrialization, colonization, and imperialism
The developed world was the first to burn fossil fuels. The developed world then went on to colonize and imperialize the developing world, getting them on fossil fuels as well.
Now the developed world wants to shift blame and responsibility on the developing world for greenhouse gas emissions and climate change?
Like raping a girl and blaming her for getting pregnant.
It is for these reasons that the Kyoto Protocol had the wealthy countries go first in reducing emissions. Those countries were supposed to set an example, give developing countries a buffer, and help them with the transition.
But the Kyoto Protocol was a fail because it couldn’t manage the free-rider problem. The U.S. didn’t want to take action because China didn’t have to. Canada didn’t want to take action because the U.S. wasn’t going to.
Tragedy of the commons, y’all.
