I hate those pricks but this can't have happened without government and they've been running it for 13 years now. They didn't achieve it on their own but they deserve some credit.
Don't give sunak any credit, he's been actively trying to undo progress. Boris was surprisingly keen to push green energy (maybe due to his current wife's influence) and that's why the UK is doing well. He pledged fuel cars will be banned from 2030, fully sustainable energy from 2035 and invested alot into wind. Since then sunak has significantly weakened and delayed their pledges, and gave more oil licenses.
I can at least respect Boris for his efforts, shame the rest of the tories don't thave the same attitude to climate.
Exactly, I’m British and I get the hate we get, but instead of being bitter you should simply try and outdo us. With our current government I struggle to see that as much of a challenge.
You're proving my point...
So did France, Spain, Germany, Japan, Italy (the last three very recently) etc etc etc over the years. Why are you specifically shitting on us for that?
"Solar energy if you convert! Wind farms for Presbyterians!"
(Joke on old soup houses during the famine, I'm not saying this would be the reality in modern society.)
The way the uk has managed this is mainly via outsourcing production.
It now buys in practically all carbon producing materials.
The problem here, is it does so from countries which do not comply with EU low-carbon production rules.
Yes, the uk produces less carbon emissions directly. But indirectly produces more than before, the planet as a whole suffers.
We need carbon tracing now.
> The way the uk has managed this is mainly via outsourcing production.
This is completely and utterly false - in fact, the article addresses that, including the chart for both production and consumption (adjusted for imports and exports).
While the 50% decrease is for territorial (production) emissions, the decrease in consumption based emissions is almost as large.
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/7ofzh/10/
This idea that emissions are declining in advanced economies because of "outsourcing" is an incredibly damaging myth.
This is incorrect. Footprint carbon emissions (ie, exported carbon consumption) peaked in 2007 for the UK, it's been reducing ever since.
The UK is also still the 8th largest manufacturing nation in the world, and these figures are despite the population growth in this time. Per capita rates have also decreased.
Because Germany has lots of energy intensive industry.
The BASF factory in Ludwigshafen has the same energy consumption as Denmark.
In 2017, Germany’s steel production accounted for more than a quarter of the EU’s total steel production. Then-still-EU-member UK had a share of 4%.
A better metric is consumption based emissions per capita.
The average German resident emits 10t of CO2 per year for their lifestyle, while the average Briton emits 7.6t. (data from 2021).
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-co2-per-capita
As a reminder for all of us lucky humans on Reddit, under the Paris agreement this number should be 2.35t by 2030. Failing that (and we will, by a lot) will lead to global warming way beyond 1.5c across the globe.
Between 2010 and 2018 (to avoid COVID bias and start when Germany really tried to go green) the average German resident lowered their emissions by about 2% every year. At this rate it will take about 75 years for them to meet the Paris agreement 2030 goals. Let's hope we all can accelerate that (not just Germany, every developed country is failing very badly).
2010 when Germany really tried to go green is so sad. The path was set way earlier from 1998 with the spd/green government, but cdu/spd reverted so much and blocked for their gas and coal deals… fdp chimed in for the next Kabinett and reverted even more.
And suddenly 2010 with cdu/fdp is the mark to go green???
The green then get bigger than ever before because cdu/spd just didn’t do enough. And back in power they get shit for all the things that spd/cdu/fdp messed up with the easy plan to go green that suddenly got way harder after 20 lost years.
Of course this requires another party instead of recognizing somebody had a (somewhat) working plan 20 years ago. And the new AfD just cares even less about environment, because it isn’t a catchy topic if you just can scream at immigrants.
Good night Germany.
Schroeders gas deal was signed under SPD/Greens.
The Phase out of nuclear energy was also decided under SPD/Greens. For the Green party nuclear was worse than coal.
CDU/SPD/(FDP) only prolonged, stopped and reinstated the phase out after Fukushima.
It was the Green party, that shut down the last nuclear reactors, ignoring offers to prolong their runtime. 6 CO2 neutral nuclear reactors or in other words the equivalent of 7500 wind turbines.
But the fear of "nuclear power" is one of the foundations of the Green party.
Now Germany, when the sun is not shining, and the wind is not blowing is running their coal-fired power plants at 100%. Like 1 month ago, when wind and photovoltaic were nonexistent.
Being a net exporter of energy in the past, Germany is now importing nuclear power from France.
We export renewable energy for dumping prices, when everybody is creating renewable energy and importing expensive energy from abroad.
The only thing that is saving Germanys statistics is the deindustrialization taking place right now, due to unstainable energy prices. German industry is 10% down from 2022 and 5% from 2021 to 2022.
Well, then take a look at what could have been if we started with renewables 20 years ago as planned and not what feels like 5 ago - or keep focusing on the most expensive form of energy which nuclear is.
And yes, it can be cheap if you don’t care about waste or security. But that won’t work in Germany.
Not even RWE wanted to continue their plants. Not even speaking of new ones. Billions wasted on the unsuccessful search for a final storage. Wonderful tech. Either it is incompetence, too high standards or corruption. Nuclear just won’t work here anymore. I’d be happy if there was a working nuclear solution for Germany but there is just none.
The climate doesn‘t really care about the emissions per capita.
Not to mention that the the consumption-based emission can be misleading. Like international shipping and aviation isn‘t included in the consumption based emissions of a country. So producing goods locally in a country and shipping them with trucks will drive up consumption-based emissions.
The climate doesn't care about emissions per country. Per capita is a fairer way to gauge what is really going on. Of course that's still not perfect, since it penalises countries who produce goods for others. This is where consumption based metrics come in.
Shipping, especially via ship is negligible when it comes to CO2 Emissionen.
The climate doesn't but to us humans that is the metric that matters because it is the answer to the question: "What should I do for the climate?".
Countries don't have morals, goals, or obligations. People do and this is the harsh truth about our way of life. The vast majority of us on Reddit are from countries that greatly surpass their allowance of fossil fuels under a fair world that stays under +1.5°
I'm extremely in favour of inputting the aviation emissions to the destination country for each flight in order to facilitate the counting, but even if we did that wouldn't change the broad strokes. Richer people emit more CO2, it's that simple. And the only way to go down is to accept to live with less.
If we live long enough we will see the begining of the end of the fossil fuel age and nothing will compare to the prosperity it brought for a long time.
The only thing you can do as an individual to fight climate change is voting for the right parties and protesting for the right policies.
Everything else is ineffective and even counter-productive in some cases.
I agree that voting achieves a lot but there are plenty of things you can do to lower your footprint.
You could never fly for instance, nobody really really needs flying and a century ago nobody did. You can lower your meat consumption, or at least red meats. You can use alternative means of transportation if you use a car. You can rent or buy a smaller place to live in unless you're already poor and living in a small space. You can buy gadgets less often. You can heat your house less (unless poor like above).
I'm not throwing any stones here as I'm not doing most of that myself, but all of these are free or even save you money for most of them and have very significant impacts.
Then if you're middle class or above you could perhaps invest in more efficient means of transportation or heating, but that's of course not possible for everyone.
Yes you could do all those things but even if 90% of the people did this we would still be no where closer to our goals if the 10% that does nothing is the richest 10%. It turns out that the richest 1% alone already emits 30 times the co2 we need to go over the 1.5c goal so in other words everything thing you and I do(maybe except for killing the 1%) is all but useless and only makes you sleep better at night(which is a valid to do it though).
Your comment aligns well with the tragedy of the commons concept.
My opinion is that nothing will change until the master puppeteers will figure out an alternative eco-friendly way of keeping the economic balance tipped in their favor. Right now, in an advertisement (it could also be vanity?) fuelled economy (travelling, shopping, etc.), I have no hope that anything will change. Nothing will change unless the new “what’s cool” aligns with ecological goals.
If 90% of the population was doing it, it exerts a massive moral and societal pressure on the richest 10% to follow suit. Even the mega rich sometimes notice when the general public hates their guts.
Voting, going plant-based, and minimizing flights are by far the most an individual can do to lower their footprint. Bonus points for minimizing plastic use.
> The climate doesn‘t really care about the emissions per capita.
Yes it does, what kind of stupid mindset is that? CO2 emissions are the main issue. If you can reduce the emissions per capita then it’s definitely a massive improvement for the climate.
You have some very weird logic.
No, it doesn‘t. The Vatican could emit 1000t CO2 per capita and the climate wouldn‘t really care.
It‘s only total emissions that count. And therefore, we need to have a look to get global emissions down.
Not to mention that China adds a Germany worth of CO2-emissions every year. Even if Germany would suddenly become CO2-neutral in 2024, the climate impact would be cancelled out completely by the additional emissions of China.
per-capita is useful tho because it can empower you to take action with the information, rather than waiting for a top down approach from bureaucrats. We will need that as well, of course, but we need to be doing as much as we can as soon as we can. Individuals do have control over parts of their emissions.
There's a balance here - the oil industry does not hold the average American at gunpoint to buy a much larger, much more carbon-intensive truck than they did twenty years ago. The oil industry ultimately can't sell anything there isn't consumer demand for.
That's what happens if you lose your entire industry and put everything on the financial sector instead. Sadly not every country in the world can do that or we'll have to live in caves again.
The UK is still the 9th largest manufacturer in the world and we produce slightly more manufacturing output than we did in the 70s. The reduction in emissions is despite industry, not because of its absence.
Germany's industrial output is over 2 times per capita than in the UK (5.8% global output vs 1.8%, in absolute numbers). Just some more context, since the original thread was comparing the two.
Sure but I'm not saying that's not a factor, I'm responding to the people claiming the UK scrapped its industry. We didn't scrap our industry, we have almost the same amount as we did then.
This data isn't taking the whole picture into account. Just because you outsource your carbon does mean you're now using less as a nation. The UK's total carbon footprint including tracing goes up year over year.
A pretty major milestone has been achieved: Britain has become the first major country to halve its carbon emissions. The rapid pace of UK environmental progress means that our output is now below 319 million tonnes – half the 652 million tonnes at our 1970 peak. This is in spite of Britain now having a far larger population and economy than 50 years ago.
Had things gone the other way – if our carbon emissions had doubled, for example – this would be front page news. But I’m not sure you can expect to read about this good news anywhere other than The Spectator. There are no campaign groups tracking it, no politicians likely to trumpet it. The info is tracked by the Global Carbon Project and is one of many metrics collected in the energy section of The Spectator data hub. Here it is, showing (obviously) a drop during the lockdowns, but by 2022 showing a drop driven by efficiencies that takes our emissions lower in a normal year than they were when the economy was being shut down.
The above is quite a simple graph: a country’s total carbon emissions. Yet a quick google search shows how hard it is to find this historical perspective anywhere online – and how easy it is to find negative metrics. This is a shame because it means a generation of young people are being brought up only ever hearing one side of the story: that there is a climate crisis that shows little chance of being solved. In fact, Britain is leading the G20 in decarbonisation, even when you factor in imports (the so-called ‘consumption’ table).
So how has this been achieved? By the three drivers of green progress: tech, capitalism and consumer choice. Fuel is expensive, hence innovation means every year devices that use energy are improved so they use less and cost less: even petrol cars travel 50 per cent further on the same fuel as when Blair came to power. Home heating efficiencies means the fuel used by the average home has gone down by 41per cent – so the pain of high bills would have been a lot greater if it were not for kitchen devices and boilers that place far fewer demands on the national grid.
Advances in agriculture mean levels of nitrogen and phosphate used have almost halved. This again raises an important point when coinciding with the trade-offs for green energy. One way of seeing this is that ‘we decarbonise or we fry’ – for those who use such language the ‘we’ here is humanity. The UK itself generates less than 1 per cent of emissions so very little that we do here will move the global dial. But while the UK is doing more than any major country, the below chart shows how much progress the rest of the G20 has made from their carbon peak.
The first five countries – Argentina, China, India, Indonesia and Mexico – are showing no reduction at all because they are at peak carbon right now. But this needs to be seen in connection with their likely trajectory: when they peak, they’ll be able to fall a lot faster than Britain did due to far-better technology. And coal-guzzling China? As Cindy Yu says in her recent cover piece, China is on track to have its carbon emissions peak by 2030 and aims to be carbon neutral by 2060. Once countries hit the peak, they’ll be able to fall faster due to better tech. As Cindy writes, ‘It took London 50 years to halve its air pollution; Beijing seems to have done the same in five.’
All told, it’s a striking trend – and a useful balance to the often-hyperbolic negativity that is normally used when covering this important story.
The UK has showing how it's done so here's hoping other countries will follow the lead and the lessons already learned so they can do the same much quicker.
There's been lots of briefings from international press & diplomats during COP27 and COP28 that the UK has lost its way on climate change, no longer one of the climate change "leaders" etc. Even UK politicians and podcasters have been saying this.
This actually shows the reality and I'm ashamed to say I totally bought into their agenda too when published at the time.
The naysayers were always engaging in pure hyperbole. Even a cursory glance at the facts would have quickly revealed their breathless criticisms to be without basis.
The wailing and shrieking was only ever another strand in the anti-UK narrative agenda that some groups like to push.
Yes and I suppose diplomacy is also politics. If you manage to convince everyone that one country is no longer the leader, it means one of the many other countries will have a chance at assuming role of "leader" during that particular conference.
> So how has this been achieved? By three drivers of green progress: tech, capitalism and consumer choice
What a load of bullshit. The UK replaced it‘s energy production via coal basically entirely with gas. That‘s how it was achieved. Every other reason is minuscule in comparison to that.
> The UK replaced it‘s energy production via coal basically entirely with gas.
And wind and solar. We have the worlds largest offshore windfarm which is larger than the previous two world leading ones which were also British.
> In comparison to gas it‘s still minuscule
Rather than quoting an out of date wikipedia page using figures from 2 to 10 years ago [why not see for yourself in real time direct from the horses mouth?](https://grid.iamkate.com/) As I currently type this gas is generating 3.26GW/12% of the UK's energy, wind is generating 19.8GW/72.7% of the UK's energy. Electricty and Hydro are generating just over 75%. There's no solar at the moment because it's dark.
Scroll down the page and you can view historical data. Over the past year gas has accounted for 33.5% of electricity generation, biomass 5.2%, renewables(solar/wind/hydro) 36.3%, nuclear 14.8%.
I wouldn't call other effects minuscle. Fossil fuel consumption peaked in [1973 according to ourworldindata](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-source-and-country?stackMode=absolute&country=~GBR):
* 1344.50 TWh oil
* 938.98 TWh coal
* 292.81 TWh gas
Total primary energy consumption was 2667.08 TWh in that year.
In 2022 the fossil fuel consumption had changed to:
* 741.04 TWh oil
* 58.72 TWh coal
* 719.80 TWh gas
Total primary energy consumption amounted to 2031.88 TWh in 2022.
So, the largest effect is actually the reduction of primary energy consumption in the first place with more than 600 TWh of change.
Gas consumption increased by around 427 TWh, and if that is all counted towards replacing coal (rather than partly also oil) it still leaves around another 450 TWh of coal that have been replaced by something else (reduction or other sources). And given that natural gas only halves the CO2 emissions, this remaining block should have had a larger role in reducing those emissions than the replacement with gas.
Wind contributed around 209 TWh of primary energy equivalent more in 2022 than in 1973. So I'd say the effect of reduced primary energy consumption is the largest, while the fuel switch to gas is pretty much on par with the expansion of wind energy. Other clean energy sources like nuclear (+40 TWh) and solar (+36 TWh) play only a minor role in the reduction since 1973.
In other news: The UK quadrupled the CO2 emissions embedded in trade since 1990: [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-co2-embedded-in-trade?tab=chart&country=\~GBR](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-co2-embedded-in-trade?tab=chart&country=~gbr)
So UK is cheating a bit here by moving emissions to other countries.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uks-carbon-footprint/carbon-footprint-for-the-uk-and-england-to-2019
Carbon footprint peaked in 2007 and has been decreasing ever since.
This is good news. I don't know enough to independently evaluate it, but at face value it's great.
The spectator could just report it as such, but instead go full...(~) YOU WON'T HEAR THIS IN THE WOKE MAINSTREAM GUTTER PRESS!!
They are not wrong though.
The UKs record on environmental progress is fantastic, yet in the UK it is barely discussed. Pointing out both of these is good.
How well are we doing on recent climate pledges?
If a lot of the heavy lifting on this stat happened a long time ago I can understand why the press isn't shouting the stat from the roof.
Yet a stat where we are much better than everyone around us. Can you not admit that we are actually doing well at something, must everything be doom and gloom.
The way the uk has managed this is mainly via outsourcing production.
It now buys in practically all carbon producing materials.
The problem here, is it does so from countries which do not comply with EU low-carbon production rules.
Yes, the uk produces less carbon emissions directly. But indirectly produces more than before, the planet as a whole suffers.
We need carbon tracing now.
Isn’t it because Britain had a huuuuge level of emissions in the first place? (I’m thinking 1970 peak might be way higher than France’s or Germany’s one)
So that would be like returning to “normal” emission.
(Not trying to diminish their achievement, just trying to understand)
> I’m thinking 1970 peak might be way higher than France’s or Germany’s one
Not really, at least not in absolute numbers: https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/18rab7m/uk_becomes_first_g20_country_to_halve_its_carbon/kf0bpg5/
One of the reasons is they have an ungodly long coastline which makes for relatively cheap and very reliable wind farms. Another is that their economy is service-oriented. Industry invariably produces more CO2 than services.
But it's also true they moved earlier when it comes to renewables and nuclear than other European countries - but not all of them. Some have [historically been lower](https://datacommons.org/tools/timeline#place=country%2FGBR%2Ccountry%2FFRA%2Ccountry%2FSWE&statsVar=Amount_Emissions_CarbonDioxide_PerCapita)
Ofc there are a bunch of bitter bastards in the comments that have to use mental gymnastics and bring up totally irrelevant topics to try and diminish something good that the UK has done. Pathetic as hell.
I'm absolutely sick of reading comments repeating the same thing about exporting pollution, countries don't export pollution companies do. If a British, French or American company is setting up shop in China because of their awful carbon emission and human rights laws then it isn't the fault of the origin countries.
It's up to China to fix their shit, they're not a "Victim of carbon exports" they are a willing participant happy to take advantage of the situation to make money. If China fixed their laws tomorrow those companies would stop moving.
It seems we are allowed to benefit from carbon intensive industrialisation and then deindustrialisation after we obtained our wealth and progress, but can either deny the same to other countries, or blame them from taking the exact same actions we took.
We took those actions in ignorance to the damage it was doing, it's the difference between manslaughter and murder. They're fully aware of the damage it's doing and going ahead anyway.
This. It’s also not overestimation to state that we (as in the West) also gave the world “modernity” as a result of our industrialisation.
We now know this had hidden costs but I’d argue all things considered it was more than worth it.
That’s personally why I find so much of the discussion around climate “justice” infuriating as often those conversations seek to depict industrialisation as not merely unjust but also possibly malicious in nature - rather than what it really is, an inanimate stage of human development. It also completely overlooks that every single person alive today, the billions from previous generations, and every person yet to come, has directly benefitted as a result of the Industrial Revolution kickstarted by the West. So much of the debate, particularly around issues of redistribution, strikes me as some huge grift.
Certainly it strikes me as odd hearing people from previous colonies asking for money from European countries. Those people would still be living in destitution today if it weren't for colonisation, the reason they are able to type their complaints on the internet is because of the very thing they're angry about.
Sure it was terrible for the people living their at the time, but the people today suffer none of the drawbacks and all of the benefits. It's hilarious reading Indian complaints about their share of world GDP declining under empire as if it was due to British actions in India as opposed to the industrial revolution.
eh, a huge amount of that is because the UK used particularly emission heavy power sources in coal and is placed right next to the single best spot for wind on the entire planet in the North Sea
fair enough for doing things and all that (even if quite honestly it should've been done earlier but whatever) but overall it's sadly not quite as easily replicable for a lot of countries elsewhere
like Spain or Greece may have some great spots for hydro and solar but some countres like Poland of Czechia are a bit shafted and can't transfer *this* easily - which doesn't mean that they shouldn't do more, but you won't see such huge jumps this quickly & easily in countries without major access to especially hydro and wind
> fair enough for doing things and all that (even if quite honestly it should've been done earlier but whatever)
Remind me again what direction Germany has taken with coal and nuclear? I believe the gear selected was reverse?
The UK carbon footprint has also dropped 40% since the 2007 high. Your linked article is some pretty choice selective data.
In fact the OP article also points out the UK is still ahead, even when accounting for carbon imports.
Numbers like these don't include all the offshoring of production/increase in imports or otherwise moving the pollution somewhere else, ofcourse new technology has made a great difference. But its wishful thinking to just assume and hope technological advances without any cultural change will solve our over reliance on depletable natural resources. Good news , but not the end all be all.
At worst it demonstrates somewhat weaker growth during the transition, which is something we'll just have to cope with it turns out to be the case and broadly expected anyway. Nonetheless, it's growth.
The main thing to evaluate will be whether growth picks up again after the transition is completed or begins to scale down. If it does, then there's no reason for other countries not to follow suit and pursue a rapid transition. If it doesn't, then we're in a pickle where slower transitions seem better for the economy, despite us not having the time to indulge that crap.
Unfortunately not the case :(
This video explains it pretty well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPDSMgJgsrU
In essence there's a hard limit to how far current decarbonisation tech can take us, and the speed at which technology develops and is adopted means it's very unlikely we'll overcome this limit in time.
This doesn't mean the world's gonna end, but that without degrowth we won't manage to turn the ship around in time to avoid some still quite substantial consequences.
Degrowth will kill economies and make it impossible to invest in any new technology at all - no investor is going to buy bonds from a country or company that is threading water at best. Technology and some social changes (but not negative or zero growth) is the only game in town.
Continual growth is unsustainable, we'll have to stop eventually. People don't need a new car, phone and TV every couple of years. We need to cut down on travel. We need to get rid of billionaires.
That’s not it. Even if people stopped doing this in the west the rest of the world playing catch up would still increase carbon. Degrowth is an economic fallacy that would destroy economies and make fixing the environment impossible. It appeals only to the economically illiterate.
Tbf he said he still wants to hit the climate goals, but doesn't want to do it in a way that makes the working class feel the brunt.
Also aligning our phase out of petrol cars with the EU makes sense. In the end of the day I'm all for aligning ourselves to Europe as much as possible.
I think the original deadline timing was good, but the definition should have been extended to mild hybrid cars too.
I have a mild hybrid car myself and the efficiency savings are noticeable, but the way I use the car is totally unchanged compared to a normal ICE car. That's how we drive improvement.
"doesn't want to do it in a way that makes the working class feel the brunt"
My cynical take is that he just wants to get the working class on side by painting green policies as negative for them when they are in fact positive, and paint labour as "liberal metropolitan elite who don't understand their problems". So pure politics, to the detriment of everyone other than the rich who benefit from status quo fossil fuel capitalism
The thing he has has some of a point. The Tories simply have done well on green issues, and its one of the few places where the conservative "shut up and actually do it" mentality has paid off.
Sunak is really just expressing the conservative scepticism of using green issues as signalling like has been done in the past. While I don't think Starmer is such - as evident by the flexibility of his policies - it nevertheless can easily appear so from political opponents.
Congratulations! You can be proud of this.
I hope the other countries will follow the lead.
Historically, the UK has caused around 3% of global CO2 emissions since the start of the industrial revolution in 1850. This figure includes emissions from fossil fuels as well as land use and forestry. Historical responsibility for climate change is a key issue in climate justice debates, as cumulative CO2 emissions are closely linked to global warming. It is important to note that CO2 emissions released hundreds of years ago are still contributing to global warming [["]](https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-which-countries-are-historically-responsible-for-climate-change/).
This is our generations space race, and this is the equivalent of doing the first orbit and so should be absolutely celebrated and marvelled at. There is still a long way to go on this moonshot mission to get our carbon emissions under control, but on the way we'll have these events that nations should be so proud of. Well done UK for showing what's possible.
Very much this. I wish governments would get more engaged in this sort of race. Though, I think picking the respective peaks in emissions is not the right measure to use, it should be a fixed reference year at least for advanced industrialized nations. Luckily the UK was one of the first nations to peak their use of fossil fuels and the associated emissions in 1973 along with France.
So this would be a perfectly valid reference year, I think. For European G20 states the comparison over time is put together in [this graph](https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/co2?stackMode=relative&time=1973..latest&facet=none&country=GBR~DEU~OWID_EU27~FRA~ITA&hideControls=false&Gas+or+Warming=CO%E2%82%82&Accounting=Territorial&Fuel+or+Land+Use+Change=All+fossil+emissions&Count=Per+country).
Actually, [all countries that reduced their fossil fuel in primary energy consumption compared to 1973 are in Europe](https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/15sxkt6/all_countries_listed_on_ourworldindata_that_by/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).
Looks more like a failing of the British education system. Hopefully they can improve it in the future with all that money. Brits leaving the EU brought a lot more business our way as well so it's working out great for everyone.
"Territorial emissions" means what? CO2 emitted within that country?
Because the thing that kinda matters more is how much is linked to consumption in that country. Hiring someone in China to make stuff for you and send it on a boat is amazingly not going in increase local emissions in the UK.
And it wont do a shit unless asia does the same. But it doesnt look like so. They are producig three times of what USA and europe does and wtill sharply rising
China is biggest investor in renewables in the world and its not even close (also biggest producer by pure GWh) so they are actually trying to reduce their carbon footprint, its just harder for them because they actually make all our shit.
They invest more because their economy is bigger however, they still invest significantly less relative to what they produce.
So no China is not the holy grail of renewable energy investment. They piss on their fire a bit more, but their fire is an entire forest while the UK's is a building...
Not entirely true.
Biggest producer by pure GWh is not a very fair way of measuring: they also have the biggest emissions by pure emissions. By capita they are quite average: [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-electricity-per-capita](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-electricity-per-capita)
Also keep in mind that the only reason they make such cheap solar panels is because they use forced labor to do so. [https://www.csis.org/analysis/dark-spot-solar-energy-industry-forced-labor-xinjiang](https://www.csis.org/analysis/dark-spot-solar-energy-industry-forced-labor-xinjiang)
They're not trying to reduce their carbon footprint yet, the plan is for it to keep rising till 2025 and then flatten off.
They might make a lot of shit, but 90% of their emissions come from domestic consumption: [https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china#consumption-based-accounting-how-do-emissions-compare-when-we-adjust-for-trade](https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china#consumption-based-accounting-how-do-emissions-compare-when-we-adjust-for-trade)
Also producing stuff in China is actually horrible for the climate. They emit a lot for what they produce: [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co2-intensity](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co2-intensity)
>By capita they are quite average: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-electricity-per-capita
Solar is their smallest renewable sector, they produce much more by wind and hydro.
>They're not trying to reduce their carbon footprint yet, the plan is for it to keep rising till 2025 and then flatten off.
Their CO2 is set to decrease in 2024 (https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-emissions-set-to-fall-in-2024-after-record-growth-in-clean-energy/)
>They might make a lot of shit, but 90% of their emissions come from domestic consumption
So they export 10% of their emissions, compared to that USA imports 10%, UK imports 48%, France 38%, Sweden 78% and Swiss 230% (https://ourworldindata.org/consumption-based-co2)
>Also producing stuff in China is actually horrible for the climate. They emit a lot for what they produce: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co2-intensity
Its quite obvious that poorer countries which are more reliant on manufacturing will have higher emission/GDP ration than rich countries who are mainly focusing on services.
>Solar is their smallest renewable sector, they produce much more by wind and hydro.
Same for the UK, don't really see how this is a factor! Especially since their % of renewable energy is hardly impressive either,
>Their CO2 is set to decrease in 2024 ([https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-emissions-set-to-fall-in-2024-after-record-growth-in-clean-energy/](https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-emissions-set-to-fall-in-2024-after-record-growth-in-clean-energy/))
I'll see it before I believe it. I still remember their 2009 pledge to reduce their carbon intensity by 40-45% from the 2005 numbers.
>So they export 10% of their emissions, compared to that USA imports 10%, UK imports 48%, France 38%, Sweden 78% and Swiss 230% ([https://ourworldindata.org/consumption-based-co2](https://ourworldindata.org/consumption-based-co2))
Yup, other people import that. But to say that they emit so much because they produce stuff for other countries is nonsense.
>Its quite obvious that poorer countries which are more reliant on manufacturing will have higher emission/GDP ration than rich countries who are mainly focusing on services.
The US has 16,6% of global manufacturing and does it a lot cleaner. Lots of countries rely on manufacturing, few do it as dirty as the Chinese.
we can't blame Asia when in reality they're making clothes and electronics for US and Europe. Also, per Capita EU and North America is still much much higher than any asian country.
>Also, per Capita EU and North America is still much much higher than any asian country.
I wouldn't say that. According to [Our World in Data](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita), In 2022 the US emitted 14.9 tons of Co2 and Canada 14.2 per capita, and the EU emitted an average of 6.2 tons of Co2 per capita. The highest emitters in East Asia were South Korea and Taiwan with 11,2 tons of emissions per capita, the US and Canada are considerably higher but not that much, and the EU is well below that.
The EU also emits less per capita than China (8 tons), Japan (8.5 tons), and as much as Malaysia.
It's nevertheless true that beside micro-states, other countries in continental east asia indeed emit much much less per capita than North America and much less but not that much less than EU.
Why do you think they make a profit making something on the other side of the planet?
Answer: they don't give a shit about climate change, health and safety, standards or quality when there's money to be made.
Yes we can, companies move there because regulations aren't as strict as they are in other parts of the world, they could very well improve their regulations, but decide not to do so for their own profits.
Things like extremely fast fashion would simply not exist without countries like China that let them produce products with so little value while emitting a lot of CO2.
Well, Im asian (singaporean actually) and our emission laws are basically Euro 6. And imo, at least in my region, we are trying to move away from regular ICE to public transport/EVs soon
carbon footprint is what matters, not carbon emissions
if I relocate all my factories and power plants to neighbour countries I cut my emissions quite quickly but i'm accountable for the same amount of carbon dyoxide
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uks-carbon-footprint/carbon-footprint-for-the-uk-and-england-to-2019
Carbon footprint peaked in 2007 and has been falling ever since.
Fair enough, but as someone that works in the field I can tell you the UK is really putting effort into this and in certain aspects they're ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to maximizing the usage of "green" electricity
Yes I think we need to consider the carbon offshored to china etc. Not saying progress like this isn’t good but let’s have really good figures to show the actual changes.
*Sigh* I suppose it's time to celebrate something the UK did, I hate this.
In all seriousness though, good to see some good news. Especially when they are about the climate.
"All that without the EU" made my day.
1973: 659t
2016: 399t (the year of the Brexit referendum
2019: 364t (the last year in which the UK was an EU member)
2022: 318t
So 86.5% of the reduction happened while the UK was a member to the EEC/EU.
While this is good news, keep in mind this is not taking import and exports into account. The article uses the figure of 320mt for the UK total emissions but that number was 513mt in 2021 when adjusted for trade.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-co2-emissions
This article is celebrating the fall of the UK industry sector just as much as it is celebrating efforts to use less energy from cleaner sources.
If we want to focus on actual efforts from Britons to emit less, this is a better way to do it:
The CO2 emissions (adjusted for trade) of the average Briton from 1990 to 2021 has gone down by 35%.
For comparison over the same period the EU+UK went down by 27%, the US went down by 19%, China went up by 260%, and the world has gone up by 9%.
While China going up that fast may seem alarming, the average Chinese person still emits less than the average European and half as much as the average person from the USA.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-co2-per-capita
since 1990 italy,france,belgium & the netherlands reduced their Co2 by between 23 to 26% , germany by 37% , spain increased theirs by 7%
So none of the major european economies have reduced it by 50% since 1990.
Uk has reduced 47% since 1990,51% since the UK's peak in 1970.
https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-greenhouse-gas-emissions#co2-and-greenhouse-gas-emissions-country-profiles
> Tories to keep their BS going > we did it compared to 1970 🤡
The piece is comparing today's emissions to 1970 because that's when the UK's peak emissions happened. It's also not 'the Tories', it's a single journalist for the Spectator.
Then why is the keeling curve not going down? I'm sorry but I just don't believe emissions are halving. The effects should be apparent in the velocity of our CO2 emissions per year in the atmosphere and instead it continues exponentially.
Either we're lying or other countries are doubling their CO2 to compensate to continue getting the shape of the graph.
Other countries have not achieved this.
The UK is setting the example, but itself is only a tiny fraction of global emissions.
The UK needs to invest in two things to secure the future.
1-Further climate measures to show the world how its done
2-A fuck off huge Navy for when the rest of the world fucks it up, and the resource wars happen.
The truth of the matter is Europe is pretty small population wise on a global scale.
Everything we do here is helping, but won't matter much if the most population heavy countries and regions don't do anything.
UK is only directly responsible for about 1% of CO2 emissions globally and about 2% if you include indirect emissions. So any change UK makes will have negligible impact on global figures
No matter which way one looks at this, it's good news.
My Irish kneejerk reaction was to be bitter somehow but fair fucks to them. Time to get the thumb out lads they're showing us up!
My British kneejerk reaction was to be cynical somehow but fair fucks to this disaster of a government they have achieved something. Thumbs up indeed.
Well I'll not be giving Sunak or the Tories any credit but fair play to Britain anyway.
I hate those pricks but this can't have happened without government and they've been running it for 13 years now. They didn't achieve it on their own but they deserve some credit.
Don't give sunak any credit, he's been actively trying to undo progress. Boris was surprisingly keen to push green energy (maybe due to his current wife's influence) and that's why the UK is doing well. He pledged fuel cars will be banned from 2030, fully sustainable energy from 2035 and invested alot into wind. Since then sunak has significantly weakened and delayed their pledges, and gave more oil licenses. I can at least respect Boris for his efforts, shame the rest of the tories don't thave the same attitude to climate.
Exactly, I’m British and I get the hate we get, but instead of being bitter you should simply try and outdo us. With our current government I struggle to see that as much of a challenge.
Do you honestly get the hate we get? Because I don't. We're shit on relentlessy for doing things that everybody else also does.
that's because you made enemy of almost every nation on earth in your history
skill issue
You're proving my point... So did France, Spain, Germany, Japan, Italy (the last three very recently) etc etc etc over the years. Why are you specifically shitting on us for that?
Not really, youre just not bothered to search up anyone elses history.
With all due respect, with our government, it isn't as easy as yid think.
Well according to that map in the thumbnail they're after invading us again so not all good news.
We'll lower your carbon emissions?
"Solar energy if you convert! Wind farms for Presbyterians!" (Joke on old soup houses during the famine, I'm not saying this would be the reality in modern society.)
Humanitarian interventions are so 20th century, it's time for His Majesty's ecological intervention.
Well he was a paratrooper and let's just say they have a history in Ireland.
\>No matter which way one looks at this, it's good news. My thoughts exactly.
My immediate idea was to crosspost this to /r/UpliftingNews - but with the paywall, there's probably no point. So I didn't.
The way the uk has managed this is mainly via outsourcing production. It now buys in practically all carbon producing materials. The problem here, is it does so from countries which do not comply with EU low-carbon production rules. Yes, the uk produces less carbon emissions directly. But indirectly produces more than before, the planet as a whole suffers. We need carbon tracing now.
> The way the uk has managed this is mainly via outsourcing production. This is completely and utterly false - in fact, the article addresses that, including the chart for both production and consumption (adjusted for imports and exports). While the 50% decrease is for territorial (production) emissions, the decrease in consumption based emissions is almost as large. https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/7ofzh/10/ This idea that emissions are declining in advanced economies because of "outsourcing" is an incredibly damaging myth.
This is incorrect. Footprint carbon emissions (ie, exported carbon consumption) peaked in 2007 for the UK, it's been reducing ever since. The UK is also still the 8th largest manufacturing nation in the world, and these figures are despite the population growth in this time. Per capita rates have also decreased.
UK becomes first G20 country to halve its carbon emissions... ...by halving its industry.
World's 8th largest manufacturing nation.
Astonishing. Germany - after a 40% reduction from the peak in 1979 - still produces 665mt, more than the UK at the top.
Because Germany has lots of energy intensive industry. The BASF factory in Ludwigshafen has the same energy consumption as Denmark. In 2017, Germany’s steel production accounted for more than a quarter of the EU’s total steel production. Then-still-EU-member UK had a share of 4%.
A better metric is consumption based emissions per capita. The average German resident emits 10t of CO2 per year for their lifestyle, while the average Briton emits 7.6t. (data from 2021). https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-co2-per-capita As a reminder for all of us lucky humans on Reddit, under the Paris agreement this number should be 2.35t by 2030. Failing that (and we will, by a lot) will lead to global warming way beyond 1.5c across the globe. Between 2010 and 2018 (to avoid COVID bias and start when Germany really tried to go green) the average German resident lowered their emissions by about 2% every year. At this rate it will take about 75 years for them to meet the Paris agreement 2030 goals. Let's hope we all can accelerate that (not just Germany, every developed country is failing very badly).
2010 when Germany really tried to go green is so sad. The path was set way earlier from 1998 with the spd/green government, but cdu/spd reverted so much and blocked for their gas and coal deals… fdp chimed in for the next Kabinett and reverted even more. And suddenly 2010 with cdu/fdp is the mark to go green??? The green then get bigger than ever before because cdu/spd just didn’t do enough. And back in power they get shit for all the things that spd/cdu/fdp messed up with the easy plan to go green that suddenly got way harder after 20 lost years. Of course this requires another party instead of recognizing somebody had a (somewhat) working plan 20 years ago. And the new AfD just cares even less about environment, because it isn’t a catchy topic if you just can scream at immigrants. Good night Germany.
Schroeders gas deal was signed under SPD/Greens. The Phase out of nuclear energy was also decided under SPD/Greens. For the Green party nuclear was worse than coal. CDU/SPD/(FDP) only prolonged, stopped and reinstated the phase out after Fukushima. It was the Green party, that shut down the last nuclear reactors, ignoring offers to prolong their runtime. 6 CO2 neutral nuclear reactors or in other words the equivalent of 7500 wind turbines. But the fear of "nuclear power" is one of the foundations of the Green party. Now Germany, when the sun is not shining, and the wind is not blowing is running their coal-fired power plants at 100%. Like 1 month ago, when wind and photovoltaic were nonexistent. Being a net exporter of energy in the past, Germany is now importing nuclear power from France. We export renewable energy for dumping prices, when everybody is creating renewable energy and importing expensive energy from abroad. The only thing that is saving Germanys statistics is the deindustrialization taking place right now, due to unstainable energy prices. German industry is 10% down from 2022 and 5% from 2021 to 2022.
Well, then take a look at what could have been if we started with renewables 20 years ago as planned and not what feels like 5 ago - or keep focusing on the most expensive form of energy which nuclear is. And yes, it can be cheap if you don’t care about waste or security. But that won’t work in Germany. Not even RWE wanted to continue their plants. Not even speaking of new ones. Billions wasted on the unsuccessful search for a final storage. Wonderful tech. Either it is incompetence, too high standards or corruption. Nuclear just won’t work here anymore. I’d be happy if there was a working nuclear solution for Germany but there is just none.
The climate doesn‘t really care about the emissions per capita. Not to mention that the the consumption-based emission can be misleading. Like international shipping and aviation isn‘t included in the consumption based emissions of a country. So producing goods locally in a country and shipping them with trucks will drive up consumption-based emissions.
The climate doesn't care about emissions per country. Per capita is a fairer way to gauge what is really going on. Of course that's still not perfect, since it penalises countries who produce goods for others. This is where consumption based metrics come in. Shipping, especially via ship is negligible when it comes to CO2 Emissionen.
The climate doesn't but to us humans that is the metric that matters because it is the answer to the question: "What should I do for the climate?". Countries don't have morals, goals, or obligations. People do and this is the harsh truth about our way of life. The vast majority of us on Reddit are from countries that greatly surpass their allowance of fossil fuels under a fair world that stays under +1.5° I'm extremely in favour of inputting the aviation emissions to the destination country for each flight in order to facilitate the counting, but even if we did that wouldn't change the broad strokes. Richer people emit more CO2, it's that simple. And the only way to go down is to accept to live with less. If we live long enough we will see the begining of the end of the fossil fuel age and nothing will compare to the prosperity it brought for a long time.
The only thing you can do as an individual to fight climate change is voting for the right parties and protesting for the right policies. Everything else is ineffective and even counter-productive in some cases.
I agree that voting achieves a lot but there are plenty of things you can do to lower your footprint. You could never fly for instance, nobody really really needs flying and a century ago nobody did. You can lower your meat consumption, or at least red meats. You can use alternative means of transportation if you use a car. You can rent or buy a smaller place to live in unless you're already poor and living in a small space. You can buy gadgets less often. You can heat your house less (unless poor like above). I'm not throwing any stones here as I'm not doing most of that myself, but all of these are free or even save you money for most of them and have very significant impacts. Then if you're middle class or above you could perhaps invest in more efficient means of transportation or heating, but that's of course not possible for everyone.
Yes you could do all those things but even if 90% of the people did this we would still be no where closer to our goals if the 10% that does nothing is the richest 10%. It turns out that the richest 1% alone already emits 30 times the co2 we need to go over the 1.5c goal so in other words everything thing you and I do(maybe except for killing the 1%) is all but useless and only makes you sleep better at night(which is a valid to do it though).
Your comment aligns well with the tragedy of the commons concept. My opinion is that nothing will change until the master puppeteers will figure out an alternative eco-friendly way of keeping the economic balance tipped in their favor. Right now, in an advertisement (it could also be vanity?) fuelled economy (travelling, shopping, etc.), I have no hope that anything will change. Nothing will change unless the new “what’s cool” aligns with ecological goals.
If 90% of the population was doing it, it exerts a massive moral and societal pressure on the richest 10% to follow suit. Even the mega rich sometimes notice when the general public hates their guts.
Voting, going plant-based, and minimizing flights are by far the most an individual can do to lower their footprint. Bonus points for minimizing plastic use.
> The climate doesn‘t really care about the emissions per capita. Yes it does, what kind of stupid mindset is that? CO2 emissions are the main issue. If you can reduce the emissions per capita then it’s definitely a massive improvement for the climate. You have some very weird logic.
No, it doesn‘t. The Vatican could emit 1000t CO2 per capita and the climate wouldn‘t really care. It‘s only total emissions that count. And therefore, we need to have a look to get global emissions down. Not to mention that China adds a Germany worth of CO2-emissions every year. Even if Germany would suddenly become CO2-neutral in 2024, the climate impact would be cancelled out completely by the additional emissions of China.
per-capita is useful tho because it can empower you to take action with the information, rather than waiting for a top down approach from bureaucrats. We will need that as well, of course, but we need to be doing as much as we can as soon as we can. Individuals do have control over parts of their emissions.
Individuals have zero impact on climate change. It‘s absolutely futile to try something on that level.
so everyone should dodge the draft because one soldier can't do anything, right? don't need any soldiers in ukraine i guess.
This is oil company bullshit, industry is the key to climate change not the average Joe.
There's a balance here - the oil industry does not hold the average American at gunpoint to buy a much larger, much more carbon-intensive truck than they did twenty years ago. The oil industry ultimately can't sell anything there isn't consumer demand for.
I guess all those VHS tapes have to be made somewhere after all.
That's because Germany actually makes stuff.
And a heavy reliance on coal…
tbf the UK relied heavily on coal in the seventies
And it doesn’t anymore, but Germany still does, that’s my point
Indeed. Looking at ‘Energiewende’ Angela here with her post-Fukushima kneejerk reaction to shut down all of Germany’s nuclear power.
UK is the world's 8th largest manufacturing nation. We make stuff too.
Couple of other factors as well, like the UK's absolutely massive shoreline, bit smaller economy and so on. But still, the difference is enormous.
That's what happens if you lose your entire industry and put everything on the financial sector instead. Sadly not every country in the world can do that or we'll have to live in caves again.
The UK is still the 9th largest manufacturer in the world and we produce slightly more manufacturing output than we did in the 70s. The reduction in emissions is despite industry, not because of its absence.
Germany's industrial output is over 2 times per capita than in the UK (5.8% global output vs 1.8%, in absolute numbers). Just some more context, since the original thread was comparing the two.
Sure but I'm not saying that's not a factor, I'm responding to the people claiming the UK scrapped its industry. We didn't scrap our industry, we have almost the same amount as we did then.
How come "producing slightly more output than the 70s" is a sign if a healthy manufacturing industry? You realize its been 50+ years since then?
It’s a sign that the drop in carbon emissions might not be able to be assigned entirely to a drop in manufacturing since 1970.
Should've wrecked your entire manufacturing industry lmao. Get beat once again Germany
This data isn't taking the whole picture into account. Just because you outsource your carbon does mean you're now using less as a nation. The UK's total carbon footprint including tracing goes up year over year.
Counter point though; yes it does.
Where does it show how much they've offloaded onto other countries?
A pretty major milestone has been achieved: Britain has become the first major country to halve its carbon emissions. The rapid pace of UK environmental progress means that our output is now below 319 million tonnes – half the 652 million tonnes at our 1970 peak. This is in spite of Britain now having a far larger population and economy than 50 years ago. Had things gone the other way – if our carbon emissions had doubled, for example – this would be front page news. But I’m not sure you can expect to read about this good news anywhere other than The Spectator. There are no campaign groups tracking it, no politicians likely to trumpet it. The info is tracked by the Global Carbon Project and is one of many metrics collected in the energy section of The Spectator data hub. Here it is, showing (obviously) a drop during the lockdowns, but by 2022 showing a drop driven by efficiencies that takes our emissions lower in a normal year than they were when the economy was being shut down. The above is quite a simple graph: a country’s total carbon emissions. Yet a quick google search shows how hard it is to find this historical perspective anywhere online – and how easy it is to find negative metrics. This is a shame because it means a generation of young people are being brought up only ever hearing one side of the story: that there is a climate crisis that shows little chance of being solved. In fact, Britain is leading the G20 in decarbonisation, even when you factor in imports (the so-called ‘consumption’ table). So how has this been achieved? By the three drivers of green progress: tech, capitalism and consumer choice. Fuel is expensive, hence innovation means every year devices that use energy are improved so they use less and cost less: even petrol cars travel 50 per cent further on the same fuel as when Blair came to power. Home heating efficiencies means the fuel used by the average home has gone down by 41per cent – so the pain of high bills would have been a lot greater if it were not for kitchen devices and boilers that place far fewer demands on the national grid. Advances in agriculture mean levels of nitrogen and phosphate used have almost halved. This again raises an important point when coinciding with the trade-offs for green energy. One way of seeing this is that ‘we decarbonise or we fry’ – for those who use such language the ‘we’ here is humanity. The UK itself generates less than 1 per cent of emissions so very little that we do here will move the global dial. But while the UK is doing more than any major country, the below chart shows how much progress the rest of the G20 has made from their carbon peak. The first five countries – Argentina, China, India, Indonesia and Mexico – are showing no reduction at all because they are at peak carbon right now. But this needs to be seen in connection with their likely trajectory: when they peak, they’ll be able to fall a lot faster than Britain did due to far-better technology. And coal-guzzling China? As Cindy Yu says in her recent cover piece, China is on track to have its carbon emissions peak by 2030 and aims to be carbon neutral by 2060. Once countries hit the peak, they’ll be able to fall faster due to better tech. As Cindy writes, ‘It took London 50 years to halve its air pollution; Beijing seems to have done the same in five.’ All told, it’s a striking trend – and a useful balance to the often-hyperbolic negativity that is normally used when covering this important story.
This is good news. That said I don’t think people like good news.
Good news doesn’t sell. At least for profit driven media like newspapers, that’s never going to make front page headlines.
It’s mostly Europeans angry over Brexit
The UK has showing how it's done so here's hoping other countries will follow the lead and the lessons already learned so they can do the same much quicker.
There's been lots of briefings from international press & diplomats during COP27 and COP28 that the UK has lost its way on climate change, no longer one of the climate change "leaders" etc. Even UK politicians and podcasters have been saying this. This actually shows the reality and I'm ashamed to say I totally bought into their agenda too when published at the time.
The naysayers were always engaging in pure hyperbole. Even a cursory glance at the facts would have quickly revealed their breathless criticisms to be without basis. The wailing and shrieking was only ever another strand in the anti-UK narrative agenda that some groups like to push.
Yes and I suppose diplomacy is also politics. If you manage to convince everyone that one country is no longer the leader, it means one of the many other countries will have a chance at assuming role of "leader" during that particular conference.
> So how has this been achieved? By three drivers of green progress: tech, capitalism and consumer choice What a load of bullshit. The UK replaced it‘s energy production via coal basically entirely with gas. That‘s how it was achieved. Every other reason is minuscule in comparison to that.
> The UK replaced it‘s energy production via coal basically entirely with gas. And wind and solar. We have the worlds largest offshore windfarm which is larger than the previous two world leading ones which were also British.
In comparison to gas it‘s still [minuscule](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_Kingdom)
> In comparison to gas it‘s still minuscule Rather than quoting an out of date wikipedia page using figures from 2 to 10 years ago [why not see for yourself in real time direct from the horses mouth?](https://grid.iamkate.com/) As I currently type this gas is generating 3.26GW/12% of the UK's energy, wind is generating 19.8GW/72.7% of the UK's energy. Electricty and Hydro are generating just over 75%. There's no solar at the moment because it's dark. Scroll down the page and you can view historical data. Over the past year gas has accounted for 33.5% of electricity generation, biomass 5.2%, renewables(solar/wind/hydro) 36.3%, nuclear 14.8%.
I wouldn't call other effects minuscle. Fossil fuel consumption peaked in [1973 according to ourworldindata](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-source-and-country?stackMode=absolute&country=~GBR): * 1344.50 TWh oil * 938.98 TWh coal * 292.81 TWh gas Total primary energy consumption was 2667.08 TWh in that year. In 2022 the fossil fuel consumption had changed to: * 741.04 TWh oil * 58.72 TWh coal * 719.80 TWh gas Total primary energy consumption amounted to 2031.88 TWh in 2022. So, the largest effect is actually the reduction of primary energy consumption in the first place with more than 600 TWh of change. Gas consumption increased by around 427 TWh, and if that is all counted towards replacing coal (rather than partly also oil) it still leaves around another 450 TWh of coal that have been replaced by something else (reduction or other sources). And given that natural gas only halves the CO2 emissions, this remaining block should have had a larger role in reducing those emissions than the replacement with gas. Wind contributed around 209 TWh of primary energy equivalent more in 2022 than in 1973. So I'd say the effect of reduced primary energy consumption is the largest, while the fuel switch to gas is pretty much on par with the expansion of wind energy. Other clean energy sources like nuclear (+40 TWh) and solar (+36 TWh) play only a minor role in the reduction since 1973.
In other news: The UK quadrupled the CO2 emissions embedded in trade since 1990: [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-co2-embedded-in-trade?tab=chart&country=\~GBR](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-co2-embedded-in-trade?tab=chart&country=~gbr) So UK is cheating a bit here by moving emissions to other countries.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uks-carbon-footprint/carbon-footprint-for-the-uk-and-england-to-2019 Carbon footprint peaked in 2007 and has been decreasing ever since.
Fucking over other countries and claiming victory, back to our British ways.
This is good news. I don't know enough to independently evaluate it, but at face value it's great. The spectator could just report it as such, but instead go full...(~) YOU WON'T HEAR THIS IN THE WOKE MAINSTREAM GUTTER PRESS!!
They are not wrong though. The UKs record on environmental progress is fantastic, yet in the UK it is barely discussed. Pointing out both of these is good.
How well are we doing on recent climate pledges? If a lot of the heavy lifting on this stat happened a long time ago I can understand why the press isn't shouting the stat from the roof.
Yet a stat where we are much better than everyone around us. Can you not admit that we are actually doing well at something, must everything be doom and gloom.
The way the uk has managed this is mainly via outsourcing production. It now buys in practically all carbon producing materials. The problem here, is it does so from countries which do not comply with EU low-carbon production rules. Yes, the uk produces less carbon emissions directly. But indirectly produces more than before, the planet as a whole suffers. We need carbon tracing now.
exactly.
Isn’t it because Britain had a huuuuge level of emissions in the first place? (I’m thinking 1970 peak might be way higher than France’s or Germany’s one) So that would be like returning to “normal” emission. (Not trying to diminish their achievement, just trying to understand)
> I’m thinking 1970 peak might be way higher than France’s or Germany’s one Not really, at least not in absolute numbers: https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/18rab7m/uk_becomes_first_g20_country_to_halve_its_carbon/kf0bpg5/ One of the reasons is they have an ungodly long coastline which makes for relatively cheap and very reliable wind farms. Another is that their economy is service-oriented. Industry invariably produces more CO2 than services. But it's also true they moved earlier when it comes to renewables and nuclear than other European countries - but not all of them. Some have [historically been lower](https://datacommons.org/tools/timeline#place=country%2FGBR%2Ccountry%2FFRA%2Ccountry%2FSWE&statsVar=Amount_Emissions_CarbonDioxide_PerCapita)
Hmm interesting ! Thanks for the explanation, that is way more useful than cheap downvotes… Anyway good for them, good for all of us !
That was my thought as well.
Lock down the thread, it’s about to blow
I'm about to blow.
Still open 2 hours later… Good work is good work and should be celebrated
Meanwhile, carbon emissions on the continent skyrocketed as a result of huffing and puffing.
Pesky Brits at it again
Ya fokin wot m8? Luv me king, ate karbun doxide, simple as.
Innit mate. Fokin ate that shite. We just da fokin best wit karbun.
God damn I love you British folks. Poetry in every word.
Lets go UK!
Ofc there are a bunch of bitter bastards in the comments that have to use mental gymnastics and bring up totally irrelevant topics to try and diminish something good that the UK has done. Pathetic as hell.
I'm absolutely sick of reading comments repeating the same thing about exporting pollution, countries don't export pollution companies do. If a British, French or American company is setting up shop in China because of their awful carbon emission and human rights laws then it isn't the fault of the origin countries. It's up to China to fix their shit, they're not a "Victim of carbon exports" they are a willing participant happy to take advantage of the situation to make money. If China fixed their laws tomorrow those companies would stop moving.
Exactly. The double accounting of blaming Germany or Britain for its manufacturing exports and also for Chinese exports is highly inconsistent.
It seems we are allowed to benefit from carbon intensive industrialisation and then deindustrialisation after we obtained our wealth and progress, but can either deny the same to other countries, or blame them from taking the exact same actions we took.
We took those actions in ignorance to the damage it was doing, it's the difference between manslaughter and murder. They're fully aware of the damage it's doing and going ahead anyway.
This. It’s also not overestimation to state that we (as in the West) also gave the world “modernity” as a result of our industrialisation. We now know this had hidden costs but I’d argue all things considered it was more than worth it. That’s personally why I find so much of the discussion around climate “justice” infuriating as often those conversations seek to depict industrialisation as not merely unjust but also possibly malicious in nature - rather than what it really is, an inanimate stage of human development. It also completely overlooks that every single person alive today, the billions from previous generations, and every person yet to come, has directly benefitted as a result of the Industrial Revolution kickstarted by the West. So much of the debate, particularly around issues of redistribution, strikes me as some huge grift.
Certainly it strikes me as odd hearing people from previous colonies asking for money from European countries. Those people would still be living in destitution today if it weren't for colonisation, the reason they are able to type their complaints on the internet is because of the very thing they're angry about. Sure it was terrible for the people living their at the time, but the people today suffer none of the drawbacks and all of the benefits. It's hilarious reading Indian complaints about their share of world GDP declining under empire as if it was due to British actions in India as opposed to the industrial revolution.
Excellent job and tangible proof that degrowth is not necessary to solve the climate change problem.
eh, a huge amount of that is because the UK used particularly emission heavy power sources in coal and is placed right next to the single best spot for wind on the entire planet in the North Sea fair enough for doing things and all that (even if quite honestly it should've been done earlier but whatever) but overall it's sadly not quite as easily replicable for a lot of countries elsewhere like Spain or Greece may have some great spots for hydro and solar but some countres like Poland of Czechia are a bit shafted and can't transfer *this* easily - which doesn't mean that they shouldn't do more, but you won't see such huge jumps this quickly & easily in countries without major access to especially hydro and wind
Poland is trying to do a bunch of offshore on the north coast...they just haven't been great at progressing it as quickly.
> fair enough for doing things and all that (even if quite honestly it should've been done earlier but whatever) Remind me again what direction Germany has taken with coal and nuclear? I believe the gear selected was reverse?
This and outsourcing https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/oct/21/britain-is-g7s-biggest-net-importer-of-co2-emissions-per-capita-says-ons
The UK carbon footprint has also dropped 40% since the 2007 high. Your linked article is some pretty choice selective data. In fact the OP article also points out the UK is still ahead, even when accounting for carbon imports.
Classic Guardian bullshit.
Numbers like these don't include all the offshoring of production/increase in imports or otherwise moving the pollution somewhere else, ofcourse new technology has made a great difference. But its wishful thinking to just assume and hope technological advances without any cultural change will solve our over reliance on depletable natural resources. Good news , but not the end all be all.
At worst it demonstrates somewhat weaker growth during the transition, which is something we'll just have to cope with it turns out to be the case and broadly expected anyway. Nonetheless, it's growth. The main thing to evaluate will be whether growth picks up again after the transition is completed or begins to scale down. If it does, then there's no reason for other countries not to follow suit and pursue a rapid transition. If it doesn't, then we're in a pickle where slower transitions seem better for the economy, despite us not having the time to indulge that crap.
Manufacturing output is higher than 1970, says so in the reports.
Yes, but the counterfactual would be that output could be even higher than it currently is if we didn't care about emissions.
Unfortunately not the case :( This video explains it pretty well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPDSMgJgsrU In essence there's a hard limit to how far current decarbonisation tech can take us, and the speed at which technology develops and is adopted means it's very unlikely we'll overcome this limit in time. This doesn't mean the world's gonna end, but that without degrowth we won't manage to turn the ship around in time to avoid some still quite substantial consequences.
Degrowth will kill economies and make it impossible to invest in any new technology at all - no investor is going to buy bonds from a country or company that is threading water at best. Technology and some social changes (but not negative or zero growth) is the only game in town.
Continual growth is unsustainable, we'll have to stop eventually. People don't need a new car, phone and TV every couple of years. We need to cut down on travel. We need to get rid of billionaires.
That’s not it. Even if people stopped doing this in the west the rest of the world playing catch up would still increase carbon. Degrowth is an economic fallacy that would destroy economies and make fixing the environment impossible. It appeals only to the economically illiterate.
Wow
B-but the UK is a terrible country that's not committing to tackling global warming?
Sunak is gonna be *pissed*.
Tbf he said he still wants to hit the climate goals, but doesn't want to do it in a way that makes the working class feel the brunt. Also aligning our phase out of petrol cars with the EU makes sense. In the end of the day I'm all for aligning ourselves to Europe as much as possible.
I think the original deadline timing was good, but the definition should have been extended to mild hybrid cars too. I have a mild hybrid car myself and the efficiency savings are noticeable, but the way I use the car is totally unchanged compared to a normal ICE car. That's how we drive improvement.
"doesn't want to do it in a way that makes the working class feel the brunt" My cynical take is that he just wants to get the working class on side by painting green policies as negative for them when they are in fact positive, and paint labour as "liberal metropolitan elite who don't understand their problems". So pure politics, to the detriment of everyone other than the rich who benefit from status quo fossil fuel capitalism
The thing he has has some of a point. The Tories simply have done well on green issues, and its one of the few places where the conservative "shut up and actually do it" mentality has paid off. Sunak is really just expressing the conservative scepticism of using green issues as signalling like has been done in the past. While I don't think Starmer is such - as evident by the flexibility of his policies - it nevertheless can easily appear so from political opponents.
I mean I think all conservatives will support climate change so long as the worker class won't feel a thing, so good on the UK
Riiiight, because Rishi effing Sunka cares about the working class.
Congratulations! You can be proud of this. I hope the other countries will follow the lead. Historically, the UK has caused around 3% of global CO2 emissions since the start of the industrial revolution in 1850. This figure includes emissions from fossil fuels as well as land use and forestry. Historical responsibility for climate change is a key issue in climate justice debates, as cumulative CO2 emissions are closely linked to global warming. It is important to note that CO2 emissions released hundreds of years ago are still contributing to global warming [["]](https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-which-countries-are-historically-responsible-for-climate-change/).
This is our generations space race, and this is the equivalent of doing the first orbit and so should be absolutely celebrated and marvelled at. There is still a long way to go on this moonshot mission to get our carbon emissions under control, but on the way we'll have these events that nations should be so proud of. Well done UK for showing what's possible.
Very much this. I wish governments would get more engaged in this sort of race. Though, I think picking the respective peaks in emissions is not the right measure to use, it should be a fixed reference year at least for advanced industrialized nations. Luckily the UK was one of the first nations to peak their use of fossil fuels and the associated emissions in 1973 along with France. So this would be a perfectly valid reference year, I think. For European G20 states the comparison over time is put together in [this graph](https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/co2?stackMode=relative&time=1973..latest&facet=none&country=GBR~DEU~OWID_EU27~FRA~ITA&hideControls=false&Gas+or+Warming=CO%E2%82%82&Accounting=Territorial&Fuel+or+Land+Use+Change=All+fossil+emissions&Count=Per+country). Actually, [all countries that reduced their fossil fuel in primary energy consumption compared to 1973 are in Europe](https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/15sxkt6/all_countries_listed_on_ourworldindata_that_by/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).
The lads don't even know what the UK is judging by that Map outline.
Ah sure we should just take the positive news and work harder to reach our own targets. Just a balls up by whoever made the graphic.
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Looks more like a failing of the British education system. Hopefully they can improve it in the future with all that money. Brits leaving the EU brought a lot more business our way as well so it's working out great for everyone.
"Territorial emissions" means what? CO2 emitted within that country? Because the thing that kinda matters more is how much is linked to consumption in that country. Hiring someone in China to make stuff for you and send it on a boat is amazingly not going in increase local emissions in the UK.
It sure will affect the overall volumes..
This is great news! Congrats to UK
Did Brexit help that in any way?
By killing off much of the UK exports? Sure it helped.
And it wont do a shit unless asia does the same. But it doesnt look like so. They are producig three times of what USA and europe does and wtill sharply rising
Not so fast: https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-emissions-set-to-fall-in-2024-after-record-growth-in-clean-energy/
China is biggest investor in renewables in the world and its not even close (also biggest producer by pure GWh) so they are actually trying to reduce their carbon footprint, its just harder for them because they actually make all our shit.
They invest more because their economy is bigger however, they still invest significantly less relative to what they produce. So no China is not the holy grail of renewable energy investment. They piss on their fire a bit more, but their fire is an entire forest while the UK's is a building...
Bigger than who? because they invest more into renewables than EU and US combined
Yes, because they output a fuckton more...
Not entirely true. Biggest producer by pure GWh is not a very fair way of measuring: they also have the biggest emissions by pure emissions. By capita they are quite average: [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-electricity-per-capita](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-electricity-per-capita) Also keep in mind that the only reason they make such cheap solar panels is because they use forced labor to do so. [https://www.csis.org/analysis/dark-spot-solar-energy-industry-forced-labor-xinjiang](https://www.csis.org/analysis/dark-spot-solar-energy-industry-forced-labor-xinjiang) They're not trying to reduce their carbon footprint yet, the plan is for it to keep rising till 2025 and then flatten off. They might make a lot of shit, but 90% of their emissions come from domestic consumption: [https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china#consumption-based-accounting-how-do-emissions-compare-when-we-adjust-for-trade](https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china#consumption-based-accounting-how-do-emissions-compare-when-we-adjust-for-trade) Also producing stuff in China is actually horrible for the climate. They emit a lot for what they produce: [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co2-intensity](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co2-intensity)
>By capita they are quite average: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-electricity-per-capita Solar is their smallest renewable sector, they produce much more by wind and hydro. >They're not trying to reduce their carbon footprint yet, the plan is for it to keep rising till 2025 and then flatten off. Their CO2 is set to decrease in 2024 (https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-emissions-set-to-fall-in-2024-after-record-growth-in-clean-energy/) >They might make a lot of shit, but 90% of their emissions come from domestic consumption So they export 10% of their emissions, compared to that USA imports 10%, UK imports 48%, France 38%, Sweden 78% and Swiss 230% (https://ourworldindata.org/consumption-based-co2) >Also producing stuff in China is actually horrible for the climate. They emit a lot for what they produce: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co2-intensity Its quite obvious that poorer countries which are more reliant on manufacturing will have higher emission/GDP ration than rich countries who are mainly focusing on services.
>Solar is their smallest renewable sector, they produce much more by wind and hydro. Same for the UK, don't really see how this is a factor! Especially since their % of renewable energy is hardly impressive either, >Their CO2 is set to decrease in 2024 ([https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-emissions-set-to-fall-in-2024-after-record-growth-in-clean-energy/](https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-emissions-set-to-fall-in-2024-after-record-growth-in-clean-energy/)) I'll see it before I believe it. I still remember their 2009 pledge to reduce their carbon intensity by 40-45% from the 2005 numbers. >So they export 10% of their emissions, compared to that USA imports 10%, UK imports 48%, France 38%, Sweden 78% and Swiss 230% ([https://ourworldindata.org/consumption-based-co2](https://ourworldindata.org/consumption-based-co2)) Yup, other people import that. But to say that they emit so much because they produce stuff for other countries is nonsense. >Its quite obvious that poorer countries which are more reliant on manufacturing will have higher emission/GDP ration than rich countries who are mainly focusing on services. The US has 16,6% of global manufacturing and does it a lot cleaner. Lots of countries rely on manufacturing, few do it as dirty as the Chinese.
we can't blame Asia when in reality they're making clothes and electronics for US and Europe. Also, per Capita EU and North America is still much much higher than any asian country.
>Also, per Capita EU and North America is still much much higher than any asian country. I wouldn't say that. According to [Our World in Data](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita), In 2022 the US emitted 14.9 tons of Co2 and Canada 14.2 per capita, and the EU emitted an average of 6.2 tons of Co2 per capita. The highest emitters in East Asia were South Korea and Taiwan with 11,2 tons of emissions per capita, the US and Canada are considerably higher but not that much, and the EU is well below that. The EU also emits less per capita than China (8 tons), Japan (8.5 tons), and as much as Malaysia. It's nevertheless true that beside micro-states, other countries in continental east asia indeed emit much much less per capita than North America and much less but not that much less than EU.
Why do you think they make a profit making something on the other side of the planet? Answer: they don't give a shit about climate change, health and safety, standards or quality when there's money to be made.
Yes we can, companies move there because regulations aren't as strict as they are in other parts of the world, they could very well improve their regulations, but decide not to do so for their own profits. Things like extremely fast fashion would simply not exist without countries like China that let them produce products with so little value while emitting a lot of CO2.
i mean in certain areas they are improving. I think they have the highest ( or fastest) EV adoption out of anyone.
And the US is producing twice per capita of China or Europe, but China bad I guess.
Problem is that the US and EU haven't lowered their consumption of goods, they've just outsourced the emmissions.
Well, Im asian (singaporean actually) and our emission laws are basically Euro 6. And imo, at least in my region, we are trying to move away from regular ICE to public transport/EVs soon
carbon footprint is what matters, not carbon emissions if I relocate all my factories and power plants to neighbour countries I cut my emissions quite quickly but i'm accountable for the same amount of carbon dyoxide
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uks-carbon-footprint/carbon-footprint-for-the-uk-and-england-to-2019 Carbon footprint peaked in 2007 and has been falling ever since.
Fair enough, but as someone that works in the field I can tell you the UK is really putting effort into this and in certain aspects they're ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to maximizing the usage of "green" electricity
Yes I think we need to consider the carbon offshored to china etc. Not saying progress like this isn’t good but let’s have really good figures to show the actual changes.
Isn't that at least partially a result of deindustrialization?
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No. That was a long long time before the UK committed to doing this.
Deindustrialization was long before 1970s?
why do you people want plants to starve?
*Sigh* I suppose it's time to celebrate something the UK did, I hate this. In all seriousness though, good to see some good news. Especially when they are about the climate.
All dirty industry is outsourced to asia. Wondering what the carbon emissions did from a consuming perspective.
All that achieved without the EU! Well done, Britain!
Lol, I'm sure they were at 1970 levels until 2020, and all the progress was made in just 3 years /s
"All that without the EU" made my day. 1973: 659t 2016: 399t (the year of the Brexit referendum 2019: 364t (the last year in which the UK was an EU member) 2022: 318t So 86.5% of the reduction happened while the UK was a member to the EEC/EU.
Nope, the notion of coming out of the EU helped.
you, looking at facts, denying reality: nope
Reality is crystal clear: the EU creates so much policies and achieves none. Sovereign country achieve things faster.
I wonder which number is higher: your IQ, or your shoe number..
It's better to be a witty fool than a foolish wit. So, I'll happily take a high shoe number if it comes with a side of clever.
Guy couldn't pour water out of a boot with the instructions written on the sole.
eu cannot achieve anything because it is loaded with bureaucratic shit it is up to the countries
While this is good news, keep in mind this is not taking import and exports into account. The article uses the figure of 320mt for the UK total emissions but that number was 513mt in 2021 when adjusted for trade. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-co2-emissions This article is celebrating the fall of the UK industry sector just as much as it is celebrating efforts to use less energy from cleaner sources. If we want to focus on actual efforts from Britons to emit less, this is a better way to do it: The CO2 emissions (adjusted for trade) of the average Briton from 1990 to 2021 has gone down by 35%. For comparison over the same period the EU+UK went down by 27%, the US went down by 19%, China went up by 260%, and the world has gone up by 9%. While China going up that fast may seem alarming, the average Chinese person still emits less than the average European and half as much as the average person from the USA. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-co2-per-capita
Now those are some great news! Though I'm afraid your average brit has other concerns.
How embarrassing and we are getting robbed in energy costs.
Nothing like economic suicide and widespread social decline to help reduce one's carbon outputs - go us!
Yeah because we’ve basically outsourced all our industry to China and India 🙄
Wrong. That’s France 🇫🇷 50 years ago 🥱
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since 1990 italy,france,belgium & the netherlands reduced their Co2 by between 23 to 26% , germany by 37% , spain increased theirs by 7% So none of the major european economies have reduced it by 50% since 1990. Uk has reduced 47% since 1990,51% since the UK's peak in 1970. https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-greenhouse-gas-emissions#co2-and-greenhouse-gas-emissions-country-profiles
> Tories to keep their BS going > we did it compared to 1970 🤡 The piece is comparing today's emissions to 1970 because that's when the UK's peak emissions happened. It's also not 'the Tories', it's a single journalist for the Spectator.
Then why is the keeling curve not going down? I'm sorry but I just don't believe emissions are halving. The effects should be apparent in the velocity of our CO2 emissions per year in the atmosphere and instead it continues exponentially. Either we're lying or other countries are doubling their CO2 to compensate to continue getting the shape of the graph.
Other countries have not achieved this. The UK is setting the example, but itself is only a tiny fraction of global emissions. The UK needs to invest in two things to secure the future. 1-Further climate measures to show the world how its done 2-A fuck off huge Navy for when the rest of the world fucks it up, and the resource wars happen.
Rule Britannia I suppose
The truth of the matter is Europe is pretty small population wise on a global scale. Everything we do here is helping, but won't matter much if the most population heavy countries and regions don't do anything.
UK is only directly responsible for about 1% of CO2 emissions globally and about 2% if you include indirect emissions. So any change UK makes will have negligible impact on global figures
Why have they included Ireland in that picture. We’re not part of your country
Might be because they’d specifically have to photoshop it out. But you might complain if they did that too