How carbon colossus China dwarfs Britain’s net zero push

The imaginary ‘fight against climate change’ takes a new twist, as a few inconvenient facts get an airing from an unlikely source, showing just how ludicrous UK political obsessions have become. Example: ‘Sir Tony was correct to note that in some years the rise in China’s annual emissions has indeed been greater than Britain’s total CO2 output.’
– – –
Rishi Sunak might not have expected Sir Tony Blair to emerge as a net-zero sceptic, says the Telegraph (via MSN).

In the midst of a Tory battle over Britain’s carbon-reduction targets and the policies being used to get there, the last Labour leader to win a General Election sounded a note of caution.

Britain’s diminishing contribution to global CO2 emissions poses new questions in the fight against climate change, he suggested.

“It’s the single biggest global challenge, right, and Britain should play its part in that. But its part frankly is going to be less to do with Britain’s emissions. I mean, one year’s rise in China’s emissions would outscore the whole of Britain’s emissions for a year,” the former Labour leader said in a magazine interview.

He said “it shouldn’t be” an excuse to slack off on cutting emissions, but added that cutting our own carbon should not be the main focus:

“Don’t ask us to do a huge amount when frankly whatever we do in Britain is not really going to impact climate change,” he said.

So how do Britain’s emissions stack up against China’s?

First of all, headline emissions.

As an early leader in the industrial revolution and worker of miracles with coal power, Britain churned out more CO2 emissions than China until the 1950s, and was comprehensively overtaken in the 1970s.

Taking on the mantle of the workshop of the world in the 1990s and 2000s, China turned out six-times more CO2 than the UK in 2000, according to Our World In Data, rising to more than 16-times Britain’s in 2010, and 33-times by 2021.

That is in part a result of the UK cutting back – British emissions are down by two-fifths since the turn of the millennium – but mostly growth in China’s output.

How fast are its emissions rising?

Sir Tony was correct to note that in some years the rise in China’s annual emissions have indeed been greater than Britain’s total CO2 output.

Full article here.