A letter in Nature Climate Change presents a new way to quantify the contribution each country has made to climate change through a nation’s carbon and climate debts. This new method ranks Canada as the fourth largest climate debt-holder.
Considering only national CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion accumulated between 1990 and 2010 the United States is the largest debtor, claiming 32 per cent of the cumulative climate debt, while India is the biggest creditor. An accompanying news and views discusses the pros and cons of this approach.
Original research paper published in Nature Climate Change on September 7, 2015.
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