WEF has just published a statement on climate change ahead of the G8 from what appears more or less all of the world’s CEOs (A is for ABB, Abercrombie & Kent, Agility, AIG, Airbus, AkzoNobel, Alcoa, AMD, ANA, Anglo American, Arup; B is for Bain & Co., Bayer, BG Group, Booz & Co., BP, British Airways, BC Hydro, BT… oh, you get the idea). They say this:
Addressing climate change will require clear and honest communication as to the scale of the challenge we all face. Lord Stern describes the problem for us succinctly:
“Current annual global emission flows are around 40-45 Gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent (GtC02-eq).
About 45% of current global emissions come from developing countries and this is set to grow.
A 50% reduction in global emissions by 2050 equates to an aggregate annual flow of around 22GtC02-eq.
As there will be around 9 billion people in 2050, this implies per capita emissions per year of about 2-2.5 tonnes CO2-eq.
Currently, US emissions are more than 20 tonnes of CO2-eq per person per year, Europe and Japan 10-15 tonnes, China 5 or more tonnes, India around 1.5 and most of Africa much less than 1 tonne CO2-eq per person per year.
The consequence is that rich countries will have to take the lead and demonstrate strong cuts.
Since around 8 billion people will be in currently developing countries, those countries will also have to be in the range of 2-2.5 tonnes CO2-eq by 2050, otherwise the world average for the total would be unachievable.
Refreshing to see some actual numbers rather than the usual guff about “developed countries taking the lead”, isn’t it?
