Who Should be Excluded from Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions? (July 18, 2011)

 The leader of the federal Opposition, Tony Abbott, according to today's Australian in: "Speaking to an audience of seniors in Queensland... said the proposed cuts would be 'wiped out in just a few days' by the rapidly growing emissions of China. The other crazy thing about this is that, at the same time that our country is proposing to reduce its emissions by 5 per cent - just five per cent - the Chinese are proposing to increase their emissions by 500 per cent. So any emissions reduction that we put in place will be wiped out in just a few days by the emissions increase that the Chinese do."

A bit of hyperbole but...

The Australian goes on to report: "But speaking to a different audience today, on Mia Freedman's mamamia.com.au blog, Mr Abbott endorsed the 5 per cent target. 'Both the government and the opposition accept that Australia should reduce our emissions by 5 per cent.'"

Which is it? The Australian reports:

A spokesman for Mr Abbott said the Coalition position had not changed. "The Coalition remains strongly committed to the five per cent reduction in emissions,” he said. “But the Coalition can do it much cheaper than the government."

The chart below (and see also) shows that on the assumption there are 196 nations in the world, 14 produce more greenhouse gasses than Australia's 1.47%, i.e. 181 (92%) produce less. That's not per capita.

It's worth noting that if all nations whose total emissions were say less than 2% of the current world total were exempt from putting in place greenhouse gas reduction measures, 189 nations (currently emitting 43.7% of the world's total) would get off home free -- and global warming and ocean acidification would slow but continue to rise even were China, USA, Russia, India, Japan, Brazil, and Germany to put into effect stringent measures for reduction.

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And so with thanks to Robin, Margaret,  Despard and the G&S orchestra: