The Carbon Scales - the UK and the World

A new campaign has been launched by the World Development Movement, which focuses on UK carbon emissions compared to the rest of the world, called the Carbon Calendar, which if I'm not mistaken is the first time WDM are directly engaging in climate change campaigning - always welcome!

This is really part of a growing trend among NGOs to understanding that the environment and development affairs can no longer be treated in separate conceptual boxes - climate change is and will have tremendous consequences for development efforts, and how countries try to 'develop' (for all the academic debates around that term) will influence the global capacity to respond effectively to climate change. It is the poor, not the affluent, who will suffer the most from climate change.

Anyway, what this calendar does - is for every day of the year, to list the countries whose citizens will have emitted as much carbon dioxide over the whole year as the average UK resident up to that date in the year. For instance - by today, 15 Jan - the average UK resident will have emitted as much CO2 as the average citizen of Cameroon. So in just two weeks, we have emitted as much CO2 as the average person in Cameroon will over all of 2007. On the first of January, we had already emitted as much as the average person in Afghanistan and Chad will for the next twelve months. On the 9th of February, we will have emitted as much as the average Indian will - and so forth.

Once you get your head around it, and just think in terms of the averages, it is some pretty sobering stuff - how we relate on a per capita basis compared to the rest of the world. There is an accompanying snappy, very readable report (use the same link as above) that discusses the significance of particular dates and what we need to do about climate change.