this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2026
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It's incredibly depressing that rich countries (mostly NA, EU, Japan) account for 92% of all CO2 emissions to date, but only suffer 1% of deaths, and about 15% of material damages caused by climate change.
Source: 'Less Is More' by Jason Hickel
That must be based on very old data, for a better overview on historic CO2 emissions see: https://www.wri.org/insights/history-carbon-dioxide-emissions
And also, historic CO2 emissions are not a very helpful blame game when the reduction of current CO2 emissions is urgently necessary (and often they are only used to justify continued high emissions).
(Sorry this got so long, I got nerd-sniped once again, and I'm not even really disagreeing with you, I think.)
How are historically high CO2 emissions used to justify continued high emissions? I could imagine the only argument here that could be made would be by countries that have not yet emitted as much as other countries, and in some way one might even be inclined to say that they are right. Even if it's the wrong approach.
Also what you posted are yearly CO2 emissions, what @DupaCycki@lemmy.world was talking about is cumulative emissions. Granted, even there it's not nearly as clear cut as 92% for rich countries, but still considerable.
According to ourworldindata USA and EU (I think that does not include the UK any more) are still in the lead, but you are right, if the trend continues that's just a matter of time. However even then, when it comes down to population, USA + EU are way less people than China, and when summing USAs and EUs emissions , it will take way longer for china to "catch up"... I'm not even sure where I'm going with this, just trying to give some perspective.
However overall I still have to agree with you - eventually comparing CO2 emissions of countries with each other does not make too much sense. Not because those countries aren't at fault, rather because manufacturing and consumption is not tied to countries any more. Even within countries CO2 emissions vary a lot by purchase power.
semi-relevant rambling - you made me curious and I looked at the emissions according to income, I don't doubt that you refute them, but since I looked it up anyways I might as well leave the links here
It still stands though, that "industrialized" countries are more responsible for the whole mess. ourworldindata has a nice visualization of that. High-income countries are roughly 62%, "upper-middle-income" 28%, which leaves 6% for the lower-middle-income countries and a whooping ~1% for the low-income countries (There are some big rounding errors in there). Assuming the population distribution is somewhat similar to the one according to the world bank(also ourworldindata), the only conclusion here is that high-income countries are a lot more responsible for this whole mess. I doubt anyone actually disagrees with that.The article I linked is also about cummulative emmissions.
And sure there are many ways to look at it, but historical cummulative emmissions is consitently used as a talking point by some of the current highest emmitters to justify inaction.
Oh yeah, I missed the one about global historical cumulative emissions, sorry. In my defense, it was the second to last graph on a not very well-arranged page.
And you are right, the numbers can always be turned one way or the other, and in the end what counts is reducing emissions, but I'd say @DupaCycki@lemmy.worlds point stands - the countries that caused the most CO2 emissions have less to worry about in terms of damage due to climate change. Yet.
I think that is a bit of an artifact of them being simply richer and having better infrastructure. Similar to Japan having very few deaths due to earthquakes despite being hit by very strong ones regularly. And of course the world market allowing rich countries to offset food shortages and such much more easily.
Ah, now we finally have a point where I disagree :) However I'm not sure if this is the right place to discuss this further, but I'll go one level deeper ^^
Yes, having more money and better infrastructure makes it easier to survive natural catastrophes, but I'd argue there is a strong relation between "simply being richer and having better infrastructure" and "emitting more CO2". A lot of economic growth came from access to cheap energy, for which those countries went out of their ways to make sure they get it.
Sure, I am not disagreeing with that, but when purely looking at the climate change that is happening around the world, the northern latitudes are actually experiencing more change, and it would be foolish for the rich countries to think the impacts are something that only affects poor nations in the global south. The rich countries simply have more coping capacity left right now, but when that is exhausted they will be likely more impacted and with a population much less prepared for it.
Agreed, I have nothing to add here. Thanks for the discussion!