If a majority of our species remains poor, we cannot hope for a world at peace; if the poor seek to improve their lot by methods we rich pioneered, the result will be world ecological damage.
Twenty-five years ago, William Ruckelshaus, the first administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, made this point in Scientific American. Sadly, but predictably, the poor nations are following our lead and world pollution, including greenhouse gases, is increasing at an alarming rate. Total worldwide anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions increased from approximately 9 billion tons per year in 1960 to almost 23 billion tons in 1990, the year after the Scientific American article. carbon dioxide emissions in 2010 exceeded 33 billion tons.
Our concern is that carbon dioxide concentrations affect climate change. Since 1900, carbon dioxide concentrations have increased from 300 ppm (parts per million) to 400 ppm. That’s a 33 percent increase — in just over 100 years — above the prior 600,000-year high. Carbon dioxides’s lifetime in the atmosphere is not short and approximately one-third is still there after 100 years. It is clear that current high carbon dioxide concentrations are due in large measure to developed nations, not the developing world.
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In 2010, U.S. carbon dioxide emissions were 5.4 billion tons, while China’s and India’s were 8.3 billion and 2 billion tons, respectively. Today, China, the United States, and India account for more than 45 percent of total anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions.
Let’s now look at some statistics that rarely appear in the emissions-reduction debate: per capita emissions and population. From 1990 to 2010, U.S. per capita carbon dioxide emissions decreased from 19.1 tons to 17.6 tons. During this same period, China’s per capita emissions increased from 2.2 tons to 6.2 tons, and India’s increased from 0.8 tons to 1.7 tons. Other developed nations are significantly below the U.S. For example, the European Union’s per capita emissions totaled about 7.4 tons and, while its population is 50 percent larger than the U.S., its overall carbon dioxide emissions were more than 10 percent lower.
The BBC has now reported that China’s per capita emissions increased to 7.2 tons in 2013, a 16 percent increase in three years. What if India and China, with a combined population of more than 2.5 billion, had per capita carbon dioxide emissions equal to those of the United States? Emissions from just India and China would be 44 billion tons. Even if the rest of the world managed to hold emissions steady, the global total would be over 65 billion tons, almost twice the current level.
The math requires that China, India and the U.S. control their emissions. Our per capita emissions are more than twice those of the EU, more than eight times the per capita emissions of India, and almost three times those of China. As a practical matter, the world cannot force China, India, or the U.S. to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Nor can China and India be stopped from trying to increase their standards of living.
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Recently, U.N. members announced basic agreement on how countries should tackle climate change. The agreement envisions developed nations reducing emissions and helping developing nations deal with climate change, but leaves much to be worked out later this year at the Climate Change Summit in Paris.
Opponents have argued that the U.N. climate change program is about redistribution of wealth and complain that developing nations want technological and financial help to address emission issues. China’s economy wins and we lose is the assertion.
These criticisms ignore the fundamental fact so well expressed by the late Sen. Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin: “The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment, not the other way around.”
Critics also often ignore our responsibility for current carbon dioxide concentrations and our per capita emissions that are much higher than many developed and developing countries. And, most importantly, they ignore the fact that what China and India do affects the whole world’s climate, including ours.
Our country must do several things.
First, America must stop whining and lead by example by sharply reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Certainly we can cut our per capita emissions by 50 percent, a point at which they will still be higher than the EU’s.
Second, America must acknowledge that we do not “win” if China, India and other developing nations continue to increase emissions to equal or exceed our per capita level — and the planet is fundamentally changed as a result. We must provide technological and financial assistance to developing nations so they can improve their standards of living without increasing emissions, as we did when we improved ours.
These things will not be easy to do, but the decision to do them is unavoidable.
Hullihen Williams Moore is a former member of the Virginia State Corporation Commission and the Virginia State Air Pollution Control Board. He is a photographer whose book, “Shenandoah, Views of Our National Park,” was published by the University of Virginia Press; his work is also in the permanent collection of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. He is a trustee of the Shenandoah National Park Trust, the Menokin Foundation and the 500 Year Forest Foundation. Contact him at hullie@comcast.net.
“The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment, not the other way around.”