A political pundit has slammed the UK’s focus on climate change by sharing a graph which claims China’s carbon emissions total more than all other countries combined.
James Melville, a political commentator and a regular contributer to GB News, shared the live BBC graph on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
The graph details how China’s carbon emissions have grown from 1959 to 2020 and now surpasses all other countries’ contributions – with the UK not even appearing on the top ten list.
It comes as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced he’d delay a series of key climate targets at a press conference yesterday (September 21).
Mr Melville wrote: “China’s emissions now exceed all developed nations combined.
“But let’s cull cows, ban gas boilers, enforce ULEZ, dump 40 million tons of wind turbine blades in landfills by 2050, use electric car batteries with cobalt, mined by child slaves in Congo.”
Many of his followers agreed with his post.
One follower said: “I wish someone, somewhere would acknowledge and celebrate the progress we’ve made since 1960.”
Another said: “If we achieved net zero tomorrow China would replace our emissions by Christmas.”
Following China, other countries contributing the highest amount of emissions, according to the graph, are the US, India and Russia.
But in a piece entitled Why the UK’s 1% of global emissions is a big deal, Gareth Redmond-King of the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit sets out an opposing argument.
The climate expert says we need to consider the UK’s total emissions, which include the ones created in other countries to provide the goods and services used here.
He wrote: “It’s often claimed the UK, at 1 percent of global emissions, is too small to have an impact, often followed by ‘what about China?’.
“But there’s so much wrong with that calculation.”
He adds: “That 1 percent only covers the UK’s territorial emissions – those within our borders.
“But in 2016, the UK’s true carbon footprint was nearly twice that. That is, when you include emissions generated elsewhere in the world either to supply stuff we import, or by things we do outside the UK.”
He goes on to say that includes international flights, imported fossil fuels and consumer goods.
Mr Redmond-King added: “After the EU, China is the second biggest source of those goods and emissions, with Russia and the Middle East also in the top six.
“Even just at 1 percent for territorial emissions, we’re still amongst the top emitting countries – number 15 in 2017 and 2018.
“Actually, nearly a third of global emissions comes from countries whose territorial emissions are each 1 percent or less of the global total; around half from nations that account for less than 3 percent each of annual world emissions.”
Yesterday Rishi Sunak told reporters he will push back a ban on selling new petrol and diesel cars from 2030 to 2035, slow down plans to phase out gas boilers and reject calls to regulate efficiency for homeowners.
He also reiterated plans to expand oil and gas developments in Britain’s North Sea and drill for the fossil fuels that environmental groups condemned and that the ban on onshore wind will be lifted.
The move has split the Tories with outrage from the environmental wing of the party.
Tory peer Lord Goldsmith, who quit as environment minister in June with a scathing attack on Mr Sunak’s climate “apathy”, called for an immediate general election.
