cool spreadsheet/dataset here http://www.match-info.net/ comments my way
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Mathew Carr, emissions markets, energy reporter. London Bloomberg News ph +44 207 073 3531 yahoo ID carr_mathew
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U.S. Emitted 20% of Global-Warming Gases From 1750, Match Says
2010-11-22 15:11:49.720 GMT
By Mathew Carr
Nov. 22 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. emitted 20 percent of the
world's global-warming gases from 1750 through 2005, and China
accounted for 12 percent, according to a group of scientists.
The association known as Match, which models and assesses
contributions to climate change, said it showed for the first
time how assessments over different timeframes and various
industries change the estimate of national contribution.
The Match database shows that China is overtaking the U.S.
in terms of emissions. United Nations talks have stalled over
targets after limits for richer nations in the 1997 Kyoto
Protocol expire in 2012. Almost 200 nations are meeting later
this month in Cancun, Mexico, to try and reach an agreement to
limit greenhouse gases blamed for climate change.
China, with a population of 1.4 billion people, will be
responsible for 16.2 percent of the world's emissions in the
three decades through 2020, the research and Bloomberg data
show. That compares with 15.7 percent for the U.S., which has
322 million people.
Based on energy and industry emissions only for the period
from 1990 through 2020, which ignores agriculture and land-use
gases, the U.S. contribution rises to 19.9 percent, outstripping
China's at 17.8 percent, the research shows.
The research shows that developing nations probably won't
track the carbon intensity of richer nations, especially those
that were first to industrialize, such as Britain, Niklas Hoehne
who heads the MATCH support unit at Ecofys Group in Cologne,
Germany, said today in a phone interview. Carbon intensity is a
measure of how much greenhouse gas is produced for each unit of
economic output.
No Longer Necessary
Coal-based economic development "is not necessary
anymore," Hoehne said. The U.K. had 6.5 percent of the world's
energy and industry emissions in the period from 1750 through
2005, according to Match data. In the period from 1990 through
2005, Britain emitted 2.4 percent of global output, it shows.
The research demonstrates the uncertainty in current data.
The U.S.'s accumulated contribution through 2005 from 1750 may
be as much as 28 percent and as low as 16 percent, it said.
In the six decades through 2050, China will contribute most
of the world's emissions, or 17.6 percent. That compares with
12.1 percent for the U.S. and 8.2 percent for India, according
to the data, which relies on previously published data from the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN's climate-
science group.
For Related News and Information:
Emission market news: NI ENVMARKET <GO>
Today's top energy stories: ETOP <GO>
European power-markets home page: EPWR <GO>
--Editors: Mike Anderson, Stephen Cunningham.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Mathew Carr in London at +44-20-7073-3531 or
m.carr@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Stephen Voss at +44-20-7073-3520 or sev@bloomberg.net
