The UN’s climate change summit was held on Monday at a time greenhouse gas emissions and variations in global temperatures are at record highs.
At the event, teen activist Greta Thunberg made an impassioned speech about how national leaders have "stolen" her dreams. "How dare you", she said.
Meanwhile, national leaders took to the podium, but failed to announce concrete plans.
India is the third largest contributor to emissions after the U.S. and China. Meanwhile, a survey on attitudes to climate change shows that about 6% of U.S. respondents were in denial about climate change.
Big polluters
While India is among the top Carbon Dioxide (CO2 ) emitters (as of 2017), its share of emissions (2,467 MT) was lower compared to other big emitters like China and the U.S. China’s in particular has risen significantly in the last 30 years.
India's emissions per capita is lower compared to other nations. The below table shows that West Asian countries and the United States have higher emissions per capita.
Country | Emission per capita (tonnes of CO2) |
|---|---|
Qatar | 49.18 |
Kuwait | 25.24 |
UAE | 24.66 |
U.S. | 16.24 |
Russia | 11.76 |
Japan | 9.45 |
China | 6.98 |
India | 1.84 |
Rising temperatures
An increase in CO2 emissions has contributed to an increase in global temperature anomalies, which indicate how much warmer or colder it is than normal (The average over the 30-year period 1951-1980) for a particular place and time.
The Sense Climate Index is a composite index of climate quantities. Positive values refer to warming, while negative values refer to changes associated with cooling.
Varying attitudes
Nearly 9% of those surveyed by YouGov in the U.S. said that the climate was changing but human activity was not responsible for it at all (the highest such % among 30,000 people in 28 nations surveyed).
