China’s historical emissions within its borders have now caused more global warming than the 27 member states of the EU combined, according to new Carbon Brief analysis.
The findings come amid fraught negotiations at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, where negotiators have been invoking the “principle of historical responsibility” in their discussions over who should pay money towards a new goal for climate finance – and how much.
Carbon Brief’s analysis shows that 94% of the global carbon budget for 1.5C has now been used up, as cumulative emissions since 1850 have reached 2,607bn tonnes of carbon dioxide (GtCO2).
While developed countries have used the majority of this budget, the analysis shows that China’s historical emissions reached 312GtCO2 in 2023, overtaking the EU’s 303GtCO2.
China is still far behind the 532GtCO2 emitted by the US, however, according to the analysis.
Indeed, China is unlikely to ever overtake the US contribution to global warming, based on current policies, committed plans and technology trends in both countries. This is even before accounting for the potential emissions-boosting policies of the incoming Trump presidency.
In addition, China’s 1.4 billion people are each responsible for 227tCO2, a third of the 682tCO2 linked to the EU’s 450 million citizens – and far below the 1,570tCO2 per capita in the US.
The new analysis follows Carbon Brief’s 2021 analysis of historical responsibility, based on emissions taking place within each country’s present-day borders or considering emissions embedded in imports. Further analysis in 2023 assigned responsibility to colonial rulers.
(A table at the end of this article shows which countries have the largest historical emissions according to the full range of metrics, including emissions per person.)
Animated chart shows the cumulative historical emissions of key countries since 1850. Credit: Joe Goodman / Carbon Brief
History matters
Historical CO2 emissions matter for climate change, because there is a finite “carbon budget” that can be released into the atmosphere before a given level of global warming is breached.
For example, in order to limit warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, only around 2,800GtCO2 can be added to the atmosphere, counting all emissions since the pre-industrial period. (This is according to a 2023 study updating figures from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.)
Cumulative emissions since 1850 will reach 2,607CO2 by the end of 2024, according to Carbon Brief’s new analysis, meaning that some 94% of the 1.5C budget will have been used up.
These cumulative historical emissions are directly and proportionally linked to the amount of global warming that has already been seen to date.
Conclusions adopted by countries at the end of the first week at COP29 also make this link, in light of 2024 being on track to be the hottest year on record:
“The [subsidiary body to the UN climate process] SBSTA…expressed utmost concern about the state of the global climate system…with 2024 being on track to be the hottest year on record, which is primarily a result of the long-term warming caused by emissions from pre-industrial times until now.”
In addition, draft text on the new climate finance goal explicitly links responsibility for global warming to finance “burden-sharing arrangements” – meaning who should pay and how much.
In one passage of a draft published on 16 November 2024, there is a reference to the “principle of historical responsibility”. Another passage says that developed-country cumulative emissions should be used as a “proxy for historic responsibility for climate change”. The draft states:
“[D]eveloped country parties shall establish burden-sharing arrangements to enable the delivery of the [new climate finance] goal based on cumulative territorial CO2 emissions…as a proxy for historic responsibility for climate change.”
An alternative option in the draft says that countries should have to contribute to the new climate finance target if they are one of the world’s “top 10 emitters” based on cumulative emissions – and if they have average per-capita incomes above a certain level.
(If agreed, this would mean China, as a top-10 historical emitter, being obliged to contribute to climate finance. However, the draft is not final and is likely to change significantly. Many parts of the draft are enclosed in square brackets, indicating that they are not agreed.)
At the annual UN climate talks, it is also common for developing countries to remind developed nations that they have used up a large share of the world’s carbon budget – and that they should, therefore, be making stronger efforts to cut their emissions.
For example, in the closing plenary of the first week at COP29, Saudi Arabia “lamented depleted carbon budgets…in light of historic cumulative emissions as well as developed countries’ insufficient mitigation efforts”, according to the Earth Negotiations Bulletin.
China’s rising contribution
It is true that developed countries have been the leading contributors to historical emissions. This is despite the fact that China now has the world’s highest emissions on an annual basis.
Put another way, developed countries have made a disproportionately large contribution to current global warming, particularly when considering the number of people that live in them.
This is a key reason why the Paris Agreement says they “should continue taking the lead” on cutting their emissions – and why they must provide climate finance for developing nations.
The 1992 UN climate convention (UNFCCC) listed “developed” countries in Annex I, based on membership of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development at the time.
The convention says that the “largest share of historical and current global emissions of greenhouse gases has originated in developed countries”.
Indeed, at the time of the convention being agreed in 1992, Annex I countries accounted for 22% of the world’s population and a disproportionately large 61% of historical emissions.
By the end of 2024, however, Annex I countries’ share of cumulative historical emissions will have fallen to 52% of the global total. Carbon Brief’s analysis suggests that developing countries – those outside Annex I – will account for a majority of historical emissions in roughly six years.
China’s rapidly rising contribution to cumulative emissions is a major driver of this shift.
In 1992, China’s historical emissions were around two-fifths (41%) the size of the EU’s. By 2015, when the Paris Agreement was finalised, they were still only four-fifths (80%) of the EU’s total.
By the end of 2023, Carbon Brief’s analysis shows that China’s cumulative emissions (red line in the figure below) had overtaken those from the 27 EU member states (yellow).
Still, it is worth emphasising that China’s emissions remain far behind those of the EU on a per-capita basis.
When weighting historical emissions per head of population in 2024, China’s contribution is just 227tCO2 per capita, less than a third of the 682tCO2 for people in the EU27.
(There are several other ways to measure historical contributions. These include adjustments to account for CO2 embedded in imported goods and services, or shifting responsibility under periods of colonial rule. See the table below to compare countries using different metrics.)
US still most responsible
While China is now the world’s second-largest contributor to historical emissions, ahead of the EU27, it remains far behind the US, as shown in the figure below.
With cumulative emissions of 537GtCO2 by the end of 2024, the US total is two-thirds higher than China’s and three-quarters above the EU27.
Still, China is closing the gap, given its annual emissions are now roughly double those of the US. This is clear from the slope of the curves in the chart above, where China’s line is rising steeply.
China may never overtake the US
The fact that China’s annual emissions are so much higher than those from the US begs the question of when might it overtake the US, in terms of its cumulative historical total.
A 2023 article in the Washington Post attempted to answer this question, asserting that China would overtake the US in 2050. However, it used implausible projections in which annual emissions from the US, China and Europe remained almost unchanged for decades.
To attempt a more plausible answer, Carbon Brief has used data from the latest International Energy Agency (IEA) World Energy Outlook, published in October 2024.
Specifically, Carbon Brief looked at how annual emissions in China, the US and EU27 might change under “current policy settings” in the IEA’s “stated policies scenario” (STEPS). This reflects governments’ current and committed plans, as well as the latest energy-price trends.
The dashed lines in the figure below illustrate how the annual emissions of the US, EU and China are each expected to fall steeply under those current policy settings.
Adding these annual emissions outlooks to the historical totals up to this year suggests that China may never overtake the US in terms of its cumulative emissions, as shown in the figure below.
Emissions outlooks are by their nature uncertain. For example, China’s emissions might fail to fall as fast as the IEA expects – or the US might go faster than expected.
On the other hand, the impact of the incoming Trump presidency rolling back climate rules and aiming to “drill baby, drill” would make it even less likely that China would ever overtake the US.
Whether or not China overtakes the US in terms of its historical emissions, it is unlikely to escape pressure to contribute to global flows of climate finance.
At COP29, Ding Xuexiang, Chinese president Xi Jinping’s “special representative” and the nation’s executive vice-premier, notably used the UN language of climate finance to describe Chinese overseas aid for the first time. However, China has insisted that it will only provide such finance voluntarily.
About the data
This analysis is based on historical CO2 emissions from fossil fuel use, cement production, land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF), during the period 1850-2024.
The approach mirrors the methodology used for Carbon Brief’s analysis of historical responsibility according to emissions within national borders, and when considering colonial rule.
Those articles explain how it is possible to confidently estimate emissions that took place more than 100 years ago, how the analysis deals with changes in national borders, how emissions from land use can be estimated and why the analysis only starts in 1850.
As those articles illustrated, there are many different lenses through which historical responsibility for climate change can be viewed, each offering an alternative viewpoint on the world.
The table below, which is sortable and searchable, shows a selection of the different ways that historical responsibility can be carved up.
It lists countries according to population, historical emissions within their own borders, emissions after accounting for colonial responsibility and the impact of CO2 embedded in trade since 1990.
The table also shows two alternative per capita metrics. The first shows cumulative territorial emissions for each country, divided by its population in 2024. The second shows per-capita territorial emissions in each year, cumulatively added up through to the present day.
(Note that the table excludes countries with a population of less than 1 million people.)
This data is free to use under the terms of Carbon Brief’s CC licence. The licence applies to non-commercial use and requires a credit to “Carbon Brief” and a link to this article.
The post Analysis: China’s emissions have now caused more global warming than EU appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: China’s emissions have now caused more global warming than EU
A new independent study by Dr Harvey Mpoto Bombaka (Centro Universitário de Brasília) and Dr Ben Tippet (King’s College London), commissioned by Greenpeace International, reveals that current International Seabed Authority revenue-sharing proposals would return virtually nothing to developing countries — despite the requirement under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) that deep sea mining must benefit humankind as a whole.
Instead, the analysis shows that the overwhelming economic value would flow to a handful of private corporations, primarily headquartered in the Global North.
Download the report:
Equity, Benefit-Sharing and Financial Architecture in the International Seabed Area
Executive Summary: Equity, Benefit-Sharing and Financial Architecture in the International Seabed Area
https://www.greenpeace.org.au/greenpeace-reports/equity-benefit-sharing-and-financial-architecture-in-the-international-seabed-area/
Climate Change
Pacific nations would be paid only thousands for deep sea mining, while mining companies set to make billions, new research reveals
SYDNEY/FIJI, Thursday 26 February 2026 — New independent research commissioned by Greenpeace International has revealed that Pacific Island states would receive mere thousands of dollars in payment from deep sea mining per year, placing the region as one of the most affected but worst-off beneficiaries in the world.
The research by legal professor Dr Harvey Mpoto Bombaka and development economist Dr Ben Tippet reveals that mechanisms proposed by the International Seabed Authority (ISA) for sharing any future revenues from deep sea mining would leave developing nations with meagre, token payments. Pacific Island nations would receive only USD $46,000 per year in the short term, then USD $241,000 per year in the medium term, averaging out to barely USD $382,000 per year for 28 years – an entire annual income for a nation that is less than some individual CEOs’ salaries. Mining companies would rake in over USD $13.5 billion per year, taking up to 98% of the revenues.
The analysis shows that under a scenario where six deep sea mining sites begin operating in the early 2030s, the revenues that states would actually receive are extraordinarily small. This is in contrast to the clear mandate of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which requires mining to be carried out for the benefit of humankind as a whole.[1] The real beneficiaries, the research shows, would be, yet again, a handful of corporations in the Global North.
Head of Pacific at Greenpeace Australia Pacific Shiva Gounden, said:
“What the Pacific is being promised amounts to little more than scraps. The people of the Pacific would sacrifice the most and receive the least if deep sea mining goes ahead. We are being asked to trade in our spiritual and cultural connection to our oceans, and risk our livelihoods and food sources, for almost nothing in return.
“The deep sea mining industry has manipulated the Pacific and has lied to our people for too long, promising prosperity and jobs that simply do not exist. The wealthy CEOs and deep sea mining companies will pocket the cash while the people of the Pacific see no material benefits. The Pacific will not benefit from deep sea mining, and our sacrifice is too big to allow it to go ahead. The Pacific Ocean is not a commodity, and it is not for sale.”
Using proposals submitted by the ISA’s Finance Committee between 2022 and 2025, the returns to states barely register in national accounts. After administrative costs, institutional expenses, and compensation funds are deducted, little, if anything, remains to distribute [3].
Author Dr Harvey Mpoto Bombaka of the Centro Universitário de Brasília said:
“What’s described as global benefit-sharing based on equity and intergenerational justice increasingly looks like a framework for managing scarcity that would deliver almost no real benefits to anyone other than the deep sea mining industry. The structural limitations of the proposed mechanism would offer little more than symbolic returns to the rest of the world, particularly developing countries lacking technological and financial capacity.”
The ISA will meet in March for its first session of the year. Currently, 40 countries back a moratorium or precautionary pause on deep sea mining.
Gounden added: “The deep sea belongs to all humankind, and our people take great pride in being the custodians of our Pacific Ocean. Protecting this with everything we have is not only fair and responsible but what we see as our ancestral duty. The only equitable path is to leave the minerals where they are and stop deep sea mining before it starts.
“The decision on the future of the ocean must be a process that centres the rights and voices of Pacific communities as the traditional custodians. Clearly, deep sea mining will not benefit the Pacific, and the only sensible way forward is a moratorium.”
—ENDS—
Notes
[1] A key condition for governments to permit deep sea mining to start in the international seabed is that it ‘be carried out for the benefit of mankind as a whole’, particularly developing nations, according to international law (Article 136-140, 148, 150, and 160(2)(g), the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea).
For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact Kimberley Bernard on +61407 581 404 or kbernard@greenpeace.org
Climate Change
North Carolina Regulators Nix $1.2 Billion Federal Proposal to Dredge Wilmington Harbor
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers failed to explain how it would mitigate environmental harms, including PFAS contamination.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers can’t dredge 28 miles of the Wilmington Harbor as planned, after North Carolina environmental regulators determined the billion-dollar proposal would be inconsistent with the state’s coastal management policies.
North Carolina Regulators Nix $1.2 Billion Federal Proposal to Dredge Wilmington Harbor
Bravery Meets Tragedy: An Unending Story
Equity, Benefit-Sharing and Financial Architecture in the International Seabed Area
Pacific nations would be paid only thousands for deep sea mining, while mining companies set to make billions, new research reveals
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