Country By Country Analysis Of Years Left Until Science-demanded Zero Greenhouse Gas Emissions
By Dr Gideon Polya
11 June, 2011
Countercurrents.org
The authoritative Australian Climate Commission, advised by an expert Scientific Advisory panel composed of 9 leading Australian climate scientists, recently released a report entitled “The Critical Decade. Climate science, risks and responses”. The report stated (p53) that “The budget approach [to tackling climate change] directly links the projected rise in temperature to the aggregated global emissions in Gt [Gigatonnes or billions of tonnes] CO2 [carbon dioxide] or Gt C [carbon] for a specified period, usually 2000 to 2050 or 2100. For example, humanity can emit not more than 1 trillion [1,000 billion] tonnes of CO2 between 2000 and 2050 to have a probability of about 75% of limiting temperature rise to 2 degrees C [Centigrade] [noting that this is EU policy].” [1].
Decent people accept that “all men are created equal” and on that basis one can calculate how much of this terminal 1 trillion tonnes CO2 “budget” can be allotted to each person on Earth, and how much to each country. Further, on the same basis of “the equality of all men”, we can estimate how many years each country has left to get to zero emissions i.e. to use up its “fair share” of carbon pollution at it current rate of pollution.
The average world population over the next 40 years will be about 8 billion, so we can estimate the share of the pollution budget for each human being at 1,000 billion tonnes CO2/ 8 billion persons = 125 tonnes CO2 per person.
We can then consider the maximum amount of “fair shares” carbon pollution that can be produced by each country in order to have a 75% chance of avoiding a 2 degree C temperature rise. Thus Australia has a population of 22 million people and accordingly Australia 's share of the terminal GHG pollution budget is 125 tonnes CO2 per person x 22 million persons = 2,750 million tonnes (Mt) CO2. [2].
In 2009 Australia 's GHG pollution was 600 Mt CO2-e (CO2 equivalent i.e. taking into account other greenhouse gases such as methane, CH4, and nitrous oxide, N2O) ) and at that rate Australia will use up its share in 2,750 Mt /(600 Mt per year) = 4.6 years. However in 2009 Australia 's Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution was 600 (Domestic) + 784 (coal exports) + 31 (LNG exports) = 1,415 Mt CO2-e, this leaving only 2,750/1,415 = 1.9 years for Australia to get to zero GHG pollution.
Of course there is no way that Australia will meet its “all men are created equal” global obligations and cease polluting after achieving its “fair share” of the terminal 1 trillion tonne CO2 global GHG pollution “budget” in 2 years' time because it is fundamentally committed to coal and gas use and exports. Thus about 92% of Australia 's electricity derives from fossil fuel combustion, Australia is the world's biggest coal exporter and a major liquid natural gas (LNG) exporter. The only major change adumbrated by the Gillard Labor Government is a coal to gas transition for electric power generation, this ignoring the reality that this will mean a doubling of greenhouse gas generation from the electricity sector because methane (CH4) is 85% of natural gas, leaks at about 3.3% and is 105 times worse than CO2 as a greenhouse gas on a 20 year timeframe and taking aerosol impacts into account.
When we consider Australia 's Exported GHG pollution the situation becomes much worse. Thus the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE) has projected that Australia's black coal export will increase at an average rate of 2.4% per year over the next 20 years and that liquid natural gas (LNG) exports will increase at 9% per year over the same period. Further, it is estimated that Australian exports of dried brown coal will reach 20 Mt by 2020, this corresponding to about 59 Mt CO2-e after combustion.
Accordingly, by 2020 and based on Liberal-National Party Coalition Opposition and Labor Government (aka Lib-Lab) promises of “5% off Domestic GHG pollution by 2020” and ABARE projections, Australian Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution will be 509 Mt CO2-e (Domestic) + 1,018 Mt CO2-e (coal exports) + 80 Mt CO2-e (LNG exports) + 59 Mt CO2-e (brown coal exports) = 1,666 Mt CO2-e i.e. 118% of that in 2009.
Thus Australian policy flies in the face of science and “all men are created equal” which demand that Australia should cease pollution at current rates by late 2012. Instead Australia officially projects to increase its annual pollution by 2020 by about 18%. How does Australia 's refusal to decrease GHG pollution compare with the conduct of other countries? Set out below is the time at current pollution rates for every country in the World to use up its “fair share of the 1 trillion tonne CO2 terminal GHG pollution budget.
Years to the required “fair shares” total cessation of GHG pollution at current rates of pollution = 125 tonnes CO2-e per person/ (tonnes CO2-e per person per year) . The annual per capita GHG pollution for each country in 2000 (tonnes CO2-e per person per year) was used (the data for Uruguay was the 2005 per capita data without the land use contribution included). It should be noted that per capita consumption, fossil fuel use, livestock production and deforestation variously contribute to annual per capita GHG pollution. [3].
Countries that must cease GHG pollution within 10 years.
Belize (1.3 years), Qatar (2.3), Guyana (2.4), Malaysia (3.4), United Arab Emirates (3.4), Kuwait (4.1), Papua New Guinea (4.3), Brunei (4.8), Australia (4.8), Antigua & Barbuda (4.9), Zambia (5.1), Canada (5.1), Bahrain (5.2), United States (5.5), Trinidad & Tobago (6.4), Luxembourg (5.9), Panama (6.3), New Zealand (6.5), Estonia (6.9), Botswana (7.0), Ireland (7.4), Saudi Arabia (7.6), Venezuela (7.9), Indonesia (8.4), Equatorial Guinea (8.6), Belgium (8.7), Turkmenistan (8.8), Singapore (8.9), Czech Republic (9.0), Liberia (9.0), Netherlands (9.3), Russia (9.3), Nicaragua (9.3), Finland (9.5), Oman (9.7), Palau (9.8), Brazil (9.8), Uruguay (9.8), Denmark (10.0).
Countries that must cease GHG pollution within 20 years.
Germany (10.2 years), Mongolia (10.6), Israel (10.6), Nauru (10.7), Norway (11.0), South Korea (11.3), Kazakhstan (11.4), United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (11.4), Libya (11.6), Greece (11.6), Japan (11.7), Myanmar (11.7), Taiwan (11.8), Cyprus (12.1), Slovenia (12.3), Cambodia (12.3), Austria (12.5), Iceland (12.5), Peru (12.6), Paraguay (12.6), Ukraine (12.6), Poland (13.0), South Africa (13.2), Argentina (13.4), Slovakia (13.4), Spain (13.6), Italy (13.6), Central African Republic (13.9), France (14.4), Suriname (14.5), Belarus (14.5), Gabon (14.9), Ecuador (15.2), Bolivia (15.4), Cameroon (16.4), Iran (16.4), Côte d'Ivoire (16.7), Sweden (16.7), Seychelles (16.9), Guatemala (16.9), Bulgaria (16.9), Serbia & Montenegro (16.9), Hungary (16.9), Congo, Democratic Republic (formerly Zaire) (16.9), Uzbekistan (17.1), ) Portugal (17.4), Switzerland (17.6), Azerbaijan (18.4), Angola (18.7), Bahamas (18.9), Benin (19.2), Zimbabwe (19.2), Laos (19.5), Mexico (19.5), Nepal (19.8), Colombia (19.8), Namibia (19.8), Chile (19.8).
Countries that must cease GHG pollution within 30 years.
Malta (20.5 years), Congo, Republic (20.8), Madagascar (20.8), Croatia (21.2), Jamaica (21.2), Macedonia (21.6), Barbados (21.6), Latvia (21.9), Mauritania (22.3), Turkey (22.3), Romania (22.7), Lithuania (23.1), Costa Rica (23.1), Lebanon (23.6), North Korea (24.0), Thailand (24.5), Jordan (25.5), Honduras (26.6), Sudan (27.2), Bosnia & Herzegovina (27.8), Algeria (29.8), Iraq (29.8), Sierra Leone (29.8).
Countries that must cease GHG pollution within 40 years.
Syria (31.3 years), China (32.1), Tunisia (33.8), Dominican Republic (35.7), St Kitts & Nevis (37.9), Nigeria (37.9), Fiji (37.9), Guinea (39.1), Mauritius (39.1).
Countries that must cease GHG pollution within 50 years.
Cuba (40.3 years), Togo (40.3), Vanuatu (41.7), Philippines (41.7), Malawi (41.7), Mali (43.1), Chad (43.1), Sri Lanka (44.6), Uganda (46.3), Dominica (46.3), St Lucia (46.3), Egypt (48.1), Niue (48.1), Ghana (48.1), Moldova (50.0), Grenada (50.0).
Countries that must cease GHG pollution within 50-210 years.
El Salvador (52.1 years), Guinea-Bissau (52.1), Tanzania (52.1), Djibouti (52.1), Pakistan (54.3), Samoa (54.3), Tonga (54.3), Morocco (56.8), Senegal (56.8), Albania (56.8), Georgia (56.8), Armenia (59.5), St Vincent & Grenadines (62.5), Kenya (62.5), Maldives (65.8), Kyrgyzstan (65.8), Burkina Faso (65.8), India (69.4), Cook Islands (69.4), Bhutan (73.5), Yemen (78.1), Tajikistan (78.1), Mozambique (78.1), Rwanda (78.1), Burundi (78.1), Lesotho (83.3), Swaziland (83.3), Eritrea (89.3), Haiti (89.3), Solomon Islands (113.6), Vietnam (113.6), Cape Verde (113.6), Niger (113.6), Ethiopia (113.6), São Tomé and Príncipe (125.0), Afghanistan (138.9), The Gambia (138.9), Bangladesh (138.9), Comoros (178.6), Kiribati (208.3).
I must reiterate that there is no way that Australia will meet its global “fair shares” obligations because it is fundamentally committed to oil use and to coal and gas use and exports. Thus about 92% of Australia 's electricity derives from fossil fuel combustion, Australia is the world's biggest coal exporter and a major liquid natural gas (LNG) exporter.
In addition and most importantly, Australia is politically correct racist (PC racist) – while it endlessly preaches the equality of man, in practice it simply does not accept that “all men are created equal”. Australia commenced the genocide of the Indigenous inhabitants at inception in 1788, the Indigenous population falling from about 1 million in 1788 to about 0.1 million a century later through violence, dispossession and introduced disease. The Aboriginal Genocide continued into the 20th century with extreme deprivation of Aborigines and a policy of forced removal of about 100,000 Aboriginal children from their mothers that only ceased in the 1970s shortly after the 1967 referendum that finally enabled Aboriginal people to be counted in the national census and to be subject to Commonwealth laws, rather than just state laws. 9,000 Indigenous Australians die avoidably every year out of an Aboriginal population of 0.5 million in an ongoing Aboriginal Genocide.
While the White Australia Policy was removed in 1974, Australia offensively discriminates against non-Europeans coming to Australia . While the 1975 Racial Discrimination Act abolished racism at the Federal level, the Australian Government excluded Northern Territory Indigenous Australians, Afghan refugees fleeing the Afghan Holocaust and Afghan Genocide and Tamils refugees fleeing from the Tamil Holocaust and Tamil Genocide from the protection of this Act. Australia has been involved in all post-1950 US Asian Wars (war-related deaths 26 million, war-related refugees 20 million) and the US War on Terror that is in horrible reality a cowardly and racist war on Arab, Muslim, African, Asian, and non-European women and children (war-related deaths 12 million, Muslim refugees about 20 million). Australia has been involved in 24 genocides since 1788 of which 10 are ongoing, notably the Iraqi Genocide (4.6 million war-related deaths, 1990-2011), the Afghan Genocide (5.0 million war-related deaths, 2001-2011), the ongoing Aboriginal Genocide and worsening Climate Genocide. [4].
Indeed the current racist Labor Government of Apartheid Australia recently banned cattle sales to Indonesia after revelations that cattle were being whipped and beaten before slaughter. Yet this same racist Labor Government locks up thousands of refugee men , women and children (a humanitarian catastrophe it has helped generate) in remote, abusive concentration camps without charge or trial and is now is proposing to “traffic” asylum seekers arriving by boat to Malaysia (a country in which 30,000 refugees have been tortured by abusive imprisonment, beating and scarifying caning). Australia fulminates against “people smugglers” who try to find safe haven for several thousand mainly Muslim refugees who seek out their services but is itself proposing to engage in “people trafficking”, “people swapping” and “people trading” against the wishes of the victims, this being akin to Australia's past involvements in Kanaka slave trading in the Pacific, Indian indentured labor (5 year slaves ) in Fiji and effective slave labor of Indigenous Australians that only ended several decades ago. Likewise, the annual death rate is 2.4% for Indigenous Australians in the Northern Territory as compared to 0.4% (what it should be) and 2.5% for Australian sheep in Australian paddocks. [5].
Of course Apartheid Australia is not the only climate criminal country. Thus 38 other countries are like Australia in having to cease GHG pollution within 10 years and 8 countries are worse than Australia (variously because of massive deforestation or economic dependence on fossil fuels). Thus years left at current pollution rates until “fair shares” zero emissions is 27.8 (Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa), 21.9 (Middle East and North Africa), 19.8 (Central America and Caribbean) and 18.4 (the World) as compared to 11.8 (Europe), 11.3 (South America), 5.4 (North America) and 5.2 ( Oceania ). However continental Australia has massive agricultural, forestry, mineral and renewable energy resources – it has choices. Indeed it is estimated that 260,000 GWh per year of the 325,000 GWh per year of electrical energy Australia will need by 2020 could be supplied by wind power on a 24/7 baseload basis through various energy storage options and for as little as $144 billion. [6].
Both Dr James Lovelock FRS (Gaia hypothesis) and Professor Kevin Anderson ( Director, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Manchester, UK) have recently estimated that only about 0.5 billion people will survive this century due to unaddressed, man-made global warming. Noting that the world population is expected to reach 9.5 billion by 2050, these estimates translate to a Climate Genocide involving deaths of 10 billion people this century, this including 6 billion under-5 year old infants, 3 billion Muslims in a terminal Muslim Holocaust, 2 billion Indians, 1.3 billion non-Arab Africans, 0.5 billion Bengalis, 0.3 billion Pakistanis and 0.3 billion Bangladeshis. Already 18 million people die avoidably every year in Developing countries (minus China ) due to deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease and man-made global warming is already clearly worsening this global avoidable mortality holocaust. However 10 billion avoidable deaths due to global warming this century will yield an average global annual avoidable death rate of 100 million per year. [7].
Where does your country come in this “years left until zero emssions” analysis? We are badly running out of time. The World must take action against the more notorious climate criminal, climate racist, and climate terrorist countries such as climate criminal Apartheid Australia through Sanctions, Boycotts, Sporting Boycotts (as were successfully applied to Apartheid South Africa through exclusion from the Olympic Games and other events), Green Tariffs, International Court of Justice litigations and International Criminal Court prosecutions. Indeed I have made a formal complaint to the International Criminal Court about Australia 's involvement in the worsening Climate Genocide and other ongoing genocidal atrocities. [8].
[1]. Australian Climate Commission, “The Critical Decade. Climate science, risks and responses”, 2011: http://climatecommission.gov.au/topics/the-critical-decade/ .
[2]. List of countries by population”, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population .
[3]. “List of countries by greenhouse gas pollution per capita”, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhouse_gas_emissions_per_capita .
[4]. Gideon Polya, “Australian Anzac & Armenian Genocide, Australia 's secret genocide history”, MWC News, 25 April 2011: http://aljazeera-news.net/focus/analysis/10256-australian-anzac-a-armenian-genocide.html .
[5]. Gideon Polya. “The Awful Truth”, National Indigenous Times, 14 June 2007: http://www.nit.com.au/news/story.aspx?id=11552 .
[6]. Gideon Polya, “ Activists & pro-gas Oz Government's Carbon Tax-ETS-Ignore Agriculture (CTETSIA) climate inaction plan ”, Bellaciao, 4 March 2011: http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article20616 .
[7]. “Climate Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/climategenocide/ .
[8]. Gideon Polya, “ 9 January 2010 Formal Complaint by Dr Gideon Polya to the International Criminal Court (ICC) re US Alliance Palestinian, Iraqi, Afghan, Muslim, Aboriginal, Biofuel and Climate Genocides ”: https://sites.google.com/site/climategenocide/9-january-2010 .
Dr Gideon Polya currently teaches science students at a major Australian university. He published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London , 2003). He has recently published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ); see also his contributions “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (edited by Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007): http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ockham/stories/s1445960.htm ) and “Ongoing Palestinian Genocide” in “The Plight of the Palestinians (edited by William Cook, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2010: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/4047-the-plight-of-the-palestinians.html ). He has just published a revised and updated 2008 version of his 1998 book “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History” (see: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ) as biofuel-, globalization- and climate-driven global food price increases threaten a greater famine catastrophe than the man-made famine in British-ruled India that killed 6-7 million Indians in the “forgotten” World War 2 Bengal Famine (see recent BBC broadcast involving Dr Polya, Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen and others: http://www.open2.net/thingsweforgot/ bengalfamine_programme.html ). When words fail one can say it in pictures - for images of Gideon Polya's huge paintings for the Planet, Peace, Mother and Child see: http://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/ .
Comments are not moderated. Please be responsible and civil in your postings and stay within the topic discussed in the article too. If you find inappropriate comments, just Flag (Report) them and they will move into moderation que.
