“Australians need to stop breathing”
By Matthew Pye
Unless you are fascist, or something like that, you will agree that everyone has an equal right to breathe air. Human rights don’t get more basic than that.
Agreed?
So if everyone has an equal right to the atmosphere, it matters what we all put into it. But some nations are emitting far more greenhouse gases per capita than others. In fact, given the fact that there are only 135 gigatonnes of carbon emissions left before we lock in a rise of 1.5°C, some nations are currently emitting so much more than their fair per person share that they are continually overstepping their budget. Indeed, some nations have to not only be carbon neutral now, they actually need to start sucking it out of the atmosphere.
One such country is Australia. Every year, they exceed their equal share of the remaining budget for 1.5°C. To rectify this, they could start by not breathing, because each breath is another contribution to their greenhouse gas emissions.
Of course, nobody wants them to stop breathing. Not even the long-suffering English cricket team. But however they do it, Australians need to get down to zero emissions immediately, and in addition, they have to draw down 10 tonnes of CO2 (equivalent) per person, per year starting from now. If they don’t achieve this, if they don’t start sequestering these large amounts of CO2, that means that they are invading the atmosphere that ‘belongs’ to other people with their emissions.
Let’s be clear. These gases are not put up there without consequences. Indeed, there are hundreds of research articles that describe the various dimensions of climate injustice. There are thousands of dismal factoids about elevated death rates and displacements. The bottom line is that trillions of dollars in damages, and incalculable losses of culture and community will be felt by people who have hardly emitted any greenhouse gases.
It was a joke that Australians should stop breathing, but it isn’t that much of a joke.
Team Mega Emitters
Indeed, there is quite a big team of high emitters that are already well over the limit for 1.5°C. In 3.5 years, we will all be in the same club: namely, all of humanity living in a 1.5°C world. The difference between us, is that some will have been hugely responsible for pushing us there, and others will just have had their atmospheric space stolen by others.
China and India
One of the dominant narratives that emerged in COP28 was that China and India really had to slow down. Some nations like the UK were laughably claiming to be climate change leaders, worried that others were not pulling their weight.
Look what the numbers say. It is a very different story. When you divide the atmosphere into equal pockets of air, a different picture becomes clear.
The CUTx Index
If you want to know your own nation’s responsibility, you can find it at www.cutxpercent.org. As noted in the previous article, with a dramatic change of gear we might still limit warming to 2°C.
Yet the UNFCCC does not want to deal with national numbers. They do not want to point the finger at anyone. They think it creates negative vibes. Therefore, you will only find the problem talked about and analysed at a global level, with global responsibility. I wonder if the UNFCCC would have the same tacit policy if they were not funded by the wealthiest nations in the world, but the poorest?
The CUTx index uses the most up to date and reliable science. As noted in the previous article, it is endorsed by the world’s eminent scientists. It is also powerful because it makes the key numbers clear. It avoids two major problems. First, it avoids the dangers of keeping everything at an unjust, general global level, where there is no diagnostic finger pointing to the real cause of the problem. Second, it avoids the utterly hapless situation where everything is left to individual actions and voluntary wafts of effort.
Indeed, there are so many leverage points at a national level. Media coverage, courts of justice, laws, national policies, social and psychological identity, historical and cultural narrative lines.
We urgently need leverage. We urgently need grip. We urgently need accountability.
The CUTx index gives all that, in a fair and simple way.
The basic principles behind the numbers will be given in the final article of this series.
Footnotes and references:
1 www.cutxpercent.org
2 This teams includes the following nations: Switzerland (-12t), Iceland (-1t), Germany (-1t), Singapore (-56t), Belgium (-23t), Canada (-11t), Luxembourg (-12t), Japan (-1t), South Korea (-12t), US (-21t), Malta (-33t), Slovenia (-2t), Austria (-1t), UAE (-50t), Estonia (-2t), Czechia (-3t), Bahrain (-9t), Saudi Arabia (-23t), Qatar (-54t), Kuwait (-47t), Brunei Darussalam (-41t), Oman (-19t), Trinidad and Tobago (-13t) Palau (-8t), Turkmenistan (-15t), Mongolia (-6t).
All figures cited are the numbers of tonnes of CO2e that need to be sequestered (-), per person, per year, from today.