Despite incontrovertible and mounting evidence, the rich world does not take the threat of climate change seriously. It is high on rhetoric but low on action. Industrialized countries have created the problem of excessive and dangerous emissions. They also use a disproportionate amount of resources.

These nations have emitted greenhouse gases which are still in the atmosphere for their growth, leaving no space for the emerging world. This is the natural debt of the rich countries as against the financial debt of the developing world. Their current emissions are even higher. The us emits roughly 20 tonnes of co₂ from fuel combustion per person compared to 1.1 in India and 4 in China (see graph: Per capita burden, p 64).

From the 1990s there has been a consensus that freezing emissions at current levels would mean freezing inequity. Climate justice demanded that the rich reduced emissions, so that poorer, emerging world could grow. It was about making and sharing space. The Kyoto Protocol, which set the first targets for reduction in the industrialized world, agreed on a small and hesitant target of 5.2 per cent cuts on average on 1990 levels by 2008-12.

But even as the developing world reels under the impacts of climate change and the western media take potshots at China and India’s emissions, the promise of Kyoto is more or less forgotten. The un Framework Convention on Climate Change has just released data of the emission performance of rich countries. It finds greenhouse gas emissions are surging instead of falling.

Between 1990 and 2005, greenhouse gas emissions of the rich countries increased by 11 per cent (see graph: Greenhouse gas emissions). Look at the record of big polluters: the us’s total emissions increased by 16 per cent; Canada and Australia’s by a whopping 25-26 per cent. If only co₂ emissions are taken into account, the situation is even worse. Australia increased its emissions by 37 per cent and the us by 20 per cent (see graph: Change in CO₂ emissions). It is only when the rich world is lumped with the ‘economies in transition’—the former Soviet Bloc—do greenhouse gas emissions fall by 2.8 per cent. This is because these collapsed economies are below the 1990 levels.

The news gets worse. The countries which have substantially cut emissions, the uk and Germany, are finding that growth is compromising their efforts. Emissions in both are rising again. The reason is simple: the uk gained its emissions reduction by moving to natural gas from coal but this has begun to change. Germany gained big time because of reunification.

The bottom line is that no country has as yet reinvented its energy use or changed its consumption to limit growth. It is business as usual, whatever the consequences.

No change

No dent has been made where emissions are the greatest: in the energy sector. During 1990-2005, fossil fuel-related emissions excluding those from former Soviet bloc countries have increased by 15 per cent. Emissions from energy-producing facilities have jumped by 24 per cent and transport emissions by as much as 28 per cent (see graph: Sectoral change). The only sectors that have seen a decrease is manufacturing industry and construction partly because these countries have exported dirty manufacturing-related emissions to China and other emerging economies.

Now science tells us emissions have to be cut by 50-85 per cent. How will these countries do this when their record is pathetic? Is this a joke?