Imagine last week that a few relatives came to Thanksgiving dinner and immediately sat down finishing their fair share of the dinner before most other guests even sat down. By the time the other guests sat down, the gluttonous guests are devouring their second dinner. The early arrivals are into their third helping while the remaining guests are just starting to eat, having barely picked up their forks.
The United States is one of the gluttonous guests at the world’s dinner of carbon emissions.
The United States’ position at the Paris climate talks should be one of shame, repentance and begging for forgiveness. Energy is the lifeblood of modern civilization and fossil fuels has fueled the developed world’s appetite for energy. Who gets what energy is a matter of vital concern for all countries. Numbers matter and what the numbers show is that the United States (of which I am a citizen) has already consumed more than our fair share and will continue to do so in the future. The United States cannot morally point its’ figurative finger at other nations on issues of climate change.
Here are the numbers as I read them:
Myles Allen et al. have estimated that the total cumulative carbon emissions from human sources will need to be limited to less than a trillion metric tonnes of carbon, if a peak warming of less than 2oC is to be achieved.(1) Unfortunately, we have already emitted more than half of this amount. (2)
The United States has emitted about 100 billion metric tonnes of carbon as of 2012. (3) The United States, with about 4.4% of the world’s population, has emitted at least 17% of the world’s carbon emissions to date. (4) If the United States were to have no net carbon emissions starting today, we will have emitted about 10-11% of the trillion metric tonnes of carbon limit suggested by Allen et. al. This is about 2.5 times more than our fair share! Yes we are on our third helping of carbon emissions! Yet we are still emitting carbon dioxide equivalents at the rate of 5.8 billion metric tonnes a year. (5)
What if we ignore the past and only look to the future? There are about 400 billion metric tonnes of carbon left to be emitted before we hit the trillion tonne limit in an attempt to limit temperature rise to 2oC. The United States fair share would be just under 18 billion metric tonnes. At our current rate of carbon emissions we will use our fair share in the next 11 or 12 years. (6) It is a virtual certainty that we will continue to consume more than our fair share. We refuse to get up from the table and let others have their fair share of dinner.
The Gospel of Matthew could inform the United States posturing during the climate talks in Paris.
3 Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye. Matthew 7:3-5 (NRSV)
The log in our own eye is both our historical emissions and our current rate of carbon emissions. The speck in the eyes of the less developed countries is their emissions as they try to economically develop their country to improve the quality of life of their citizens.
Numbers matter. The United States should come to the Paris climate talks with a spirit of repentance. We need to ask the forgiveness of the rest of the world for our over consumption of the world’s resources and our endangering God’s creation in the process. We then need to leave the Paris climate talks with an all-out aggressive plan to limit our gluttony and maybe then we can all sit down together at the dinner table.
Notes:
(1) Myles R. Allen, David J. Frame, Chris Huntingford, Chris D. Jones, Jason A. Lowe, Malte Meinshausen, and Nicolai Meinshausen. “Warming Caused by Cumulative Carbon Emissions Towards the Trillionth Tonne.” Nature 458 (2009): 1163-66. The numbers presented are in terms of the mass of carbon, not the mass of carbon dioxide.
(2) For a cumulative carbon emission clock see http://www.trillionthtonne.org/ as of this writing the world has emitted almost 600 Billion metric tonnes of carbon.
(3) Or 366,421 million metric tonnes of CO2 according to the world resources institute see http://www.wri.org/resources/data-sets/cait-country-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data
(4) I have used the figure of 100 Billion metric tonnes of Carbon for the total emissions of Carbon up to 2012 to which I have added 4.7 Billion tonnes to account for the emissions in the years 2013, 2014 and 2015. This number can vary depending on the details of the calculation and some sources put the U.S. share to global cumulative carbon emissions as high as 29%.
(5) This is the number for 2013 as reported in the Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2013 (EPA 430-R-15-004) which was cited in the United States INDC at COP 21 see page 2-6. In terms of Million Metric tonnes of Carbon equivalent (not CO2) this number is 1,579.
(6) Preliminary calculations suggest that if the United States were to follow our commitments in the INDC submitted for COP 21, and we held to the rate of decline of CO2 emissions past 2025 (the last date of the commitment) then we would use up our fair share between 2028 and 2029. We would achieve zero emissions in about 2058 and have used up just under twice our fair share. More on this later.
Note: This post was edited so that the quoted amount of CO2 emissions reflected the number the US submitted at COP 21 for 2013. Footnote 5 was added to document this number. Footnote 4 was similarly updated which slightly effected some of the figures, so they were changed. The number of years to use up our fair share was corrected. A note was added to show how the planning in the United States INDC submission to COP 21 changed the time frame to using up our fair share (footnote 6).