• Question: What countries are the biggest contendors for climate change

    Asked by ShawnT on 27 Nov 2023.
    • Photo: Ian McKinley

      Ian McKinley answered on 27 Nov 2023:


      The biggest contributors to greenhouse gases at present are the USA and China, but the problem has its roots in the industrialised countries – especially in the West.
      The countries that will suffer most are, however, mainly ones that have not produced a lot of such gases – main poor, developing countries.

    • Photo: Paula McMahon

      Paula McMahon answered on 27 Nov 2023:


      If you who contributes – all of us. We can all do our bit to help. Generally richer countries have the most contributions.

    • Photo: Ollie Thomas

      Ollie Thomas answered on 28 Nov 2023:


      The things that make a country contribute to climate change more are generally large numbers of people and a large amount of resources being used per person. So currently probably the USA and China, India has a lot of people but uses less resources per person but that is likely to change in the near future. It’s hard to say though because we live in a global society so China may generate greenhouse gases for something which is actually going to be used in the UK. We need a global shift in attitudes and industry to try and make a change.

    • Photo: Jonathan Allen

      Jonathan Allen answered on 28 Nov 2023:


      Different countries contribute to climate change in different ways. Countries like Russia, China and India burn a lot of fossil fuels to produce electricity, whereas countries in Western Europe tend to be better at using clean and renewable energy sources meaning that our contributions are greater from things like transportation and manufacturing. Other countries where a lot of cattle farming happens contribute from that, whilst others that have a lot of rainforest contribute a lot by cutting down the forests. So we are all involved in the problem and provide contributions in different ways.

    • Photo: Amy Stockwell

      Amy Stockwell answered on 28 Nov 2023:


      The BBC has a good graph https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-5aceb360-8bc3-4741-99f0-2e4f76ca02bb . China has the biggest environmental emissions, because they have a lot of manufacturing. But how much of that is due to them making things for us in Europe?

    • Photo: Andrew Lyon

      Andrew Lyon answered on 29 Nov 2023:


      I think it depends if you mean who is contributing to climate change or who is most affected.

      Climate change is linked to inequality across the world. Often the poorest and most vulnerable people are most affected by climate change yet contribute the least to the crisis.

      The richest, industrialised countries tend have the biggest impact and could do a lot more by reducing resource usage, emissions and waste for example.

    • Photo: Octavia Brayley

      Octavia Brayley answered on 29 Nov 2023:


      Richer countries contribute the most to climate change but it’s the less developed countries that will be the most affected, even though they have contributed the least. Here are a couple of interesting videos on the topic:

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