The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions

by Jason Hickel

Emissions patterns are changing, of course. In 2005, developing countries as a group caught up with their richer counterparts in terms of CO2 emissions – a change for which China is almost exclusively responsible, given its heavy reliance on coal. Indeed, China recently surpassed the USA to become the world’s biggest polluter. And Brazil, Indonesia and India have now surpassed Germany and the United Kingdom. Much of this has to do with the fact that globalisation has shifted production to developing countries, and especially to China, effectively outsourcing responsibility for pollution.46 Still, once corrected for population size the picture looks significantly different. The United States remains the biggest polluter, emitting three times more CO2 than China on a per capita basis.47 Germany emits almost double what China does, per capita. And India, for its part, emits just a fraction of the world average: each Indian is responsible for only 1.4 tons of CO2, while the world average is upward of 4.5 tons per person. Africans emit only 0.9 tons per person. And yet the costs of climate change will hit Africa and India the hardest, amounting to 4 per cent and 5 per cent of their GDP, respectively.48