Launching a tool to monitor countries’ contribution to global warming

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Friday, March 31, 2023 09:00 PM

Researchers document their research efforts in a study published Wednesday in the journal Scientific Data that includes published records of historical emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, three greenhouse gases that have contributed significantly to global warming. According to a Sky News Arabia report, Prehistory is the Industrial Revolution until 2021.

Country Contributions

The study provides a ranking of countries that have contributed the most to global warming since 1850, by emissions of three greenhouse gases, to 2021:

• United States of America (0.28 ° C / 17.3%).

• China (0.20 °C / 12.3%).

• Russia (0.10 °C / 6.1%).

• Brazil (0.08 °C / 4.9%).

• India (0.08 °C / 4.8%).

• Indonesia, Germany, UK, Japan and Canada: each contributing 0.03-0.05°C.

Changes over the years

Researchers point out that since the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in 1992, some countries’ contributions to global warming have changed relative to others.

• China overtakes Russia as the second largest contributor to rising temperatures.

• Indonesia is ranked sixth ahead of both Germany and the United Kingdom.

• The combined global warming contribution of Brazil, South Africa, India and China increased from 17 percent in 1992 to 23 percent in 2021.

• Contribution of OECD countries decreased from 47 percent to 40 percent.

Notably, since 1992, the additional warming from fossil fuel emissions has been four times greater than the warming from deforestation.

Updates from time to time

From the Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in the United Kingdom, Dr. Led by Matthew Jones, he spoke to Sky News Arabia about the details of the new tool’s development. Its significance in relation to issues related to climate change states:

• “At the beginning, we asked a question about how much each country contributes to climate change through historical emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, and we noticed that getting data to help answer this question is not easy.”

• “That’s why we created the dataset ourselves, and plan to update it regularly to reflect changes in national contributions to climate change, particularly in response to global climate policies.”

• “From our data set, it is clear which countries have been the main contributors to climate change since 1850, but also how things have changed since climate change became a major issue on the international political scene.”

• “Countries that ushered in the Industrial Revolution have made significant contributions to global warming through their historical emissions, for example, the United States has been the largest contributor to global warming since 1850.”

Why is this “tool” important?

On the importance of this data, Jones told Sky News Arabia:

• “As many countries around the world strive to achieve net zero emissions, we believe this dataset will be a very important tool for monitoring the impact of climate policies.”

• “The tool will allow monitoring future reductions in emissions, but also the impact of reducing emissions on the pace of global warming”

• “This new tool will see changes on an annual basis, as we will update it with new emissions data at least every year.”

• “Based on the precision of the results, we estimate 1.4°C of warming from these three greenhouse gases alone, which matches the 1.4°C reported by the IPCC in its Sixth Assessment Report.”

The research team behind the new tool includes scientists from the International Center for Climate Research in Norway, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany, and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria. Woodwell Center for Climate Research in the United States and the University of Exeter, UK.