The UK is responsible for nearly twice as much global warming as previously thought, due to its colonial history, Carbon Brief analysis shows.
History matters because the cumulative amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted since the start of the industrial revolution is closely tied to the record temperatures expected in 2023.
Previous analysis had put the UK’s share of cumulative historical emissions at 3.0% of the global total, including CO2 from fossil fuels, cement, land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF).
This made the UK the eighth largest contributor to current warming, behind the US (1), China (2), Russia (3), Brazil (4), Germany (5), Indonesia (6) and its former colony India (7).
According to Carbon Brief’s new analysis, however, the UK is responsible for nearly twice as much warming as previously thought – some 5.1% of the global total – due to its colonial history.
This bumps the UK up to fourth place in terms of its historical responsibility for climate change, still behind the US, China and Russia – but now ahead of India, Brazil and Germany.
Moreover, the UK’s population are the second-highest emitters on a per-capita basis, when accounting for emissions under colonial rule.
For full details on the methods and data used in the analysis for this piece, as well as information on other countries, see the detailed companion article.
Historical emissions
Looking at emissions taking place within the borders of the UK alone, the country released some 76.4bn tonnes of CO2 (GtCO2) between 1850-2023.
This amounts to some 3.0% of global cumulative emissions over the same period, including CO2 from fossil fuel use, cement production and LULUCF, the world’s eighth highest share.
After adding emissions outside the UK, but under its colonial rule, its emissions rise to 130.2GtCO2, the fourth highest contribution and accounting for 5.1% of the global total.
This is shown in the figure below, which illustrates the significance of these colonial emissions for the UK, as well as for other former imperial powers Russia, France and the Netherlands.
Other former imperial powers, such as the Netherlands and France, see similarly dramatic jumps in their historical responsibility for warming. The Netherlands rises from 35th to 12th in the rankings, with its cumulative emissions nearly tripling, while the French total rises by 50%.
As a group, the EU+UK is the world’s second-largest historical contributor to warming after the US, with or without colonial emissions. Adding emissions under colonial rule increases its cumulative contribution by 28% and its share of the global total by 4 percentage points, from 14.7% to 18.7%.
Colonial emissions
The largest contributor to the UK’s colonial emissions is from India, which was under British rule from the start of the period of this analysis, 1850, until it achieved independence in 1947.
This is shown in the figure below, with territorial emissions within the UK shown on the left and colonial emissions in countries that were part of its empire on the right.
India adds 13.0GtCO2 to the UK total, of which 11.2GtCO2 (86%) is due to land use, land use change and forestry – in other words, mainly due to deforestation.
Other significant contributors include Myanmar (7.3GtCO2), Nigeria (5.1GtCO2), Australia (3.6GtOC2) and Malaysia (3.3GtCO2). Again, almost all of this CO2 came from deforestation.
Per-capita emissions
The impact of emissions under colonial rule also has a major impact when weighted on a per-capita basis, using the current population of the UK.
Cumulative emissions within UK borders 1850-2023 amount to 1,128tCO2 per capita, the seventh highest figure among countries with a population of at least 1 million people.
However, the UK’s current population are each responsible for 1,922tCO2 over 1850-2023 – the world’s second highest figure – when including emissions overseas under its colonial rule.
The post Revealed: Colonial rule nearly doubles UK’s historical contribution to climate change appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Revealed: Colonial rule nearly doubles UK’s historical contribution to climate change
Three countries have been named by the Paris Agreement’s compliance committee for failing to submit a nationally determined contribution (NDC) and repeatedly snubbing offers of help with their climate plans.
After months of internal debate over whether to identify serial non-responders, the Paris Agreement’s Implementation and Compliance Committee (PAICC) named the three countries which have failed to engage with it over their NDCs on Friday.
It named Democratic Republic of Congo, Senegal and North Korea in a footnote of its annual report, adding that it decided to name them “with a view to facilitating engagement”, adding that representatives of the three nations had been invited to its meeting in early 2027 “with the purpose of identifying any challenges and constraints”.
“The Committee noted the importance of Parties engaging with the Committee in a timely manner, while noting that some delays may be due to the national capabilities and circumstances of the Parties”, the report said.
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In July, PAICC said 12 countries had ignored its repeated attempts to discuss why they had not published an NDC as required every five years under the 2015 Paris accord.
Members of the committee had been divided over whether to name them, but at a September meeting decided to do so in their annual report to the annual climate COP summit.
By the time the report was published on Friday, only Congo, Senegal and North Korea “had not communicated an NDC or submitted a [Biennial Transparency Report] and had not yet responded to any of the Committee’s notifications, despite several reminders issued by the Committee in this regard”.
Rainforest and renewable energy ambitions
The silence from Congo and Senegal is notable because the former is home to much of the Congo Basin rainforest while the latter has sought billions of dollars in climate finance to support its renewable energy ambitions.
After Brazil, Congo has more rainforest than any country in the world. This forest, and the country’s peatlands, absorb huge amounts of greenhouse gas but are fast being lost to expanding farmland, charcoal production, logging and mining.
Senegal signed a Just Energy Transition Partnership with Canada and wealthy European nations in 2023, to help it meet its renewable energy targets under the-then government of Macky Sall. It was chair of the Least Developed Countries group between January 2022 and December 2023.
Tejas Rao, who is researching the PAICC as part of a doctoral thesis at Cambridge University, said the governments of the three countries should engage with the committee.
“Engagement costs these governments very little and the committee has shown it will listen,” he said.
“Silence leaves the committee with no basis to help, and it leaves the [governments] exposed to the narrative that they are simply disengaged,” he told Climate Home News.
Paris Agreement requirement
The 2015 Paris Agreement requires all parties to publish an NDC every five years outlining their emissions reduction targets, with each plan meant to be more ambitious than the country’s last NDC.
The latest set – the third round of plans, with new targets for 2035 – was due in February 2025. While most countries missed this deadline, all but around 30 – mostly small emitters but including Egypt, Vietnam and Argentina – have now submitted them.
Over the year, the PAICC – which is made up of government climate officials from developed and developing countries – has been communicating with governments that have not submitted NDCs and trying to overcome barriers to them doing so.
Some nations have cited exceptional circumstances as the reason for not submitting an NDC, a process that requires a significant amount of work in tracking emissions and consulting on how to curb them across the economy. For example, a letter from a Sudanese official to the PAICC, seen by Climate Home News, said that the country’s civil war had led to the suspension of its NDC preparation.
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The US and Iran are not signed up to the Paris Agreement and so do not have active NDCs, nor does Taiwan, which is not a UN member state.
Rao said that because the PAICC is “facilitative and non-punitive”, naming the countries “is meant to open a door, not close one – the invited consultation is the point”.
“In recent months, governments that explained their constraints, whether capacity, finance or domestic process, have been met with follow-up and support rather than sanction, and the number of silent governments has fallen sharply,” Rao said.
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Paris Agreement committee names three countries snubbing it over NDCs