CarbonBrief is at it again
From Climate Scepticism
BY MARK HODGSON
Not satisfied with its dubious piece: “Analysis: Record-low price for UK offshore wind is nine times cheaper than gas” , CarbonBrief recently decided to seek to ensure that Britain’s falling down the rankings of cumulative greenhouse gas emitters is reversed. After all, it’s essential that we here in the UK are made to pay for climate change, even if China has emitted more greenhouse gases in the last eight years than the UK has done since the industrial revolution. Or, to put it another way (as the BBC did as long ago as May 2021): “China emissions exceed all developed nations combined”.
Still, never mind all that, China is a developing country – apparently – so we must go easy on them. No, it’s you and me who have to pay, and here’s why. It’s because we have to take colonial rule into account. And (this is the good bit if you hate the west and love India and China), when we attribute all greenhouse gas emissions from colonial countries to their colonial masters, hey presto! Suddenly the situation looks very different. OK, the USA still tops the cumulative league tables, and China is still in second place, but France’s share increases by half, the UK’s doubles [so the article says, but persevere with the article, and actually it increases by 70%, which is a long way from doubling], the Netherlands’ nearly triples, Portugal’s more than triples, and the EU and the UK collectively see their contributions rise by “nearly a third”, to 19% [later on the article says they rise by 28%, which is nearer to a quarter than to a third. I struggle to take seriously an article with such internal contradictions].
And that’s not all. India’s share falls by 15%, while Indonesia and the whole continent of Africa also see their contributions fall by 24%. Isn’t that great? Now they can play the victim card with ever greater confidence, and it’s so much harder to blame them for anything. We can conveniently ignore the fact that India is now the world’s third largest greenhouse gas emitter on an annual basis, we can concentrate instead on the fact cumulatively it now drops to seventh place. Instead, the UK is in fourth place (leaping up from eighth place, and helpfully leap-frogging India in the process) and Germany is in sixth (sadly moving up only from seventh place, but I suppose it’s better than nothing). Excellent – make them pay!
There’s another sleight of hand that can be used to make the situation even worse for those former colonialists:
When weighted by current populations, the Netherlands (2,014tCO2 per person) and the UK (1,922tCO2) become the world’s top emitters on a cumulative per-capita basis. They are followed by Russia (1,655tCO2), the US (1,560tCO2) and Canada (1,524tCO2).
On this per-capita measure, China (217tCO2 per person), the continent of Africa (92tCO2) and India (52tCO2) are far behind developed nations’ contributions to warming.
This handily side-steps the fact that China’s current day per capita emissions are higher – more than 50% higher – than those in the UK.
Finally, give those former colonial powers a good kicking while they’re down:
Many former colonial powers are also net CO2 importers today. While data on CO2 imports and exports is limited, available figures further raise their shares of historical emissions.
Regarding that last point, not only would I – in fairness – concede that there’s something in it, it’s a point I have in the past made myself. I think it’s probably the best argument in the whole CarbonBrief piece.
The problem with the main thesis is that it largely seems to be based upon deforestation taking place under colonial rule. The issue here is that it seems to attribute it all to the decision-making power of the colonial master in each case, regardless of the reason the deforestation took place or of who ordered it. It seems historically ignorant, given how much of – for instance – modern-day India’s day-to-day rule under the British Empire was left to Indian princes. Thus, to attribute everything that went on in India during this period to the UK is simply inaccurate.
CarbonBrief’s analysis seems to assume that native rulers and inhabitants failed to receive any benefit from what went on in their lands during the colonial period, and it denies them any agency at all. It is in fact an analysis based on a colonialist mindset that assumes the locals could do – and did – nothing for themselves and the Europeans did everything, decided everything, and were the only beneficiaries. Clearly this isn’t the case.
CarbonBrief knows this, saying:
Arguably, the true share of responsibility for current warming lies somewhere between these two extremes, where emissions are fully assigned to either the colonial powers or their former colonies.
Arguably it does, but it doesn’t seem to be how CarbonBrief’s final analysis pans out. Instead, it’s all our fault:
This analysis assigns full responsibility for past emissions to those with ultimate decision-making authority at the time, namely, the colonial rulers.
CarbonBrief purport to rely heavily on the ideas expressed by Professor Beinert and Lotte Hughes in their 2007 book “Environment and Empire”, and sections of it are quoted about the colonial powers’ hunger for natural resources, which is fair enough, so far as it goes. Strangely, however, another more noble point is made:
Yet, as colonial forests were denuded of their ability to produce high-quality timber, colonisation also led to the beginnings of “conservationist practices and ideas”, Beinart and Hughes write:
“[W]hile natural resources have been intensely exploited, a related process, the rise of conservationist practices and ideas, was also deeply rooted in imperial history. Large tracts of land have been reserved for forests, national parks or wildlife.”
And it seems that the locals were not perhaps as denied of agency (or responsibility for forestry) as has been implied, since we are also told:
The book quotes Hugh Cleghorn, conservator of forests for the Madras presidency, writing in 1861 of the “careless rapacity of the native population…who cut and cleared [forests]…without being in any way under the control or regulation of authority”.
We seem to receive no (carbon) credit for putting an end to that with the creation of an Indian Forest Department in 1864, even though surely credit is due?
And although the next quote is thrown in presumably to damn the British, it actually strikes me as being rather more exculpatory than damning (at least so far as deforestation and associated greenhouse gas emissions are concerned):
“British imperial control of India had a major impact on its extraordinarily varied range of trees and forest products. It also restricted access to forests by poor people…That later exclusion of humans from wildlife parks was also partly rooted in the forest laws of the colonial people, which treated local people as wasteful and destructive…But pressures on the forest did not end with independence. The current rate of deforestation is said to be well over one million ha every year.”
A similar point could be made regarding the behaviour of the Dutch in Indonesia. (The poor Dutch, by the way, move up from somewhere below 35 on the cumulative emissions scale to thirteenth place).
We are treated to another quote:
The Dutch discovered the tobacco industry in Deli in the 1860s and created an industrial-scale plantation system. The local sultans collaborated and gave concessions of 1,000–2,000 hectares of land to each company in a 75-year lease. The Dutch colonial planters assumed that tobacco could only grow well in the soil that had just been cleared from the virgin jungle. Thus, the industry drove large-scale virgin forests clearing to produce tobacco leaves exported to Europe and America.”
So who is responsible? The Dutch colonial planters or the local sultans who leased them the land? Or should responsibility be shared?
Be that all as it may, CarbonBrief really make hay with the concept of historical per capita assumptions. Obviously if countries with large populations (such as India or Indonesia) can transfer a great deal of responsibility for their emissions to countries with much smaller populations (such as the UK or the Netherlands) then a massively distorted result can be obtained. And so it is, and CarbonBrief loves it. It tells us that on this (rather convoluted) basis, colonial powers are the top cumulative emitters per population in 2023, while the likes of China and India are far behind.
I have to say, it takes overwhelming chutzpah to give China a free pass in this way, given that it is the second greatest cumulative emitter of greenhouse gas emissions (behind only the USA), that its current day per capita emissions greatly exceed those of the UK, and that it is building new coal-fired power stations at a rate of knots. Despite all that, on this clever new basis of allocating responsibility for emissions, China has less than one eighth of the responsibility of the Netherlands, India appears to have barely 5% of the responsibility of the UK. Surely even CarbonBrief appreciate that this is an illegitimate piece of legerdemain?
Interestingly, the analysis seeks only to attribute responsibility from 1850, citing incomplete data among other reasons for this decision. However, read to the end of the article, and perhaps China isn’t so innocent after all (though of course this piece of information is omitted from the final figures in the analysis):
The picture is a little different for LULUCF. Figures from OSCAR, one of the three bookkeeping models used for post-1850 LULUCF estimates, extend back as far as 1701.
These figures show that some 93GtCO2 was released globally, during 1750-1850, equivalent to nearly 4% of the cumulative total from all sources during 1850-2023.
Nearly a quarter of this total originates in China and would not be reassigned on the basis of colonial rule.
But ignoring this in the analysis is OK, because “1850 is usually taken as the reference year for historical simulations and marks the starting point for temperature changes, which are generally measured against an 1850-1900 baseline.” Phew – that was close!
I conclude that the analysis is undoubtedly of interest, and I enjoyed reading it (honestly). However, it strikes me that its main purpose – especially given the timing of its release (26th November 2023) was to provide ammunition to developing countries with huge carbon footprints ahead of the “loss and damage” negotiations that are taking place at COP28. My only consolation is that it will probably prove to have been a waste of the authors’ time, insofar as they may have hoped that it would facilitate payment, based on climate guilt, from developed to developing countries. I very much doubt that this will come to pass.