People often say things like "its important for us to do our bit to save CO2 emissions by....." and then mention some small thing like reducing our meat consumption, or driving less, etc, etc. What you seldom hear is what the scale of CO2 emissions actually is. A quick search of the internet found the table below which shows the top ten countries for CO2 emissions and then lists over two hundred other countries. The UK is 17th and produces 0.8% of the world's total.
Individually our small changes will make no discernible difference whatsoever to the effect of CO2 on the weather or world temperature. Even if we went a lot further and cut out the entire emissions of the whole UK it would have no measurable effect. But the effect on our lives would be massive. The cost to the economy would mean severe cuts on government spending. We would all be affected, but the poor would suffer the most.
Top 10 Countries with the Highest CO₂ Emissions in the World (Unit: million tons CO₂) - 2020 EDGAR:*
Country | CO₂ Emissions 2022 |
|---|---|
| China | 12667.43 |
| United States | 4853.78 |
| India | 2693.03 |
| Russia | 1909.04 |
| Japan | 1082.65 |
| Indonesia | 692.24 |
| Iran | 686.42 |
| Germany | 673.60 |
| South Korea | 635.50 |
| Saudi Arabia | 607.91 |
Getting to zero carbon emissions is challenging. That is why it is called transition. Even though I drive electric, there is still a carbon foot print to my electric energy charging the car's batteries. Yet compared to my wife's Subaru, my carbon pollution per year is 7000 pounds (about 3100 kg) less than hers. You can find optimistic effort by some useless if you wish.
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