The distribution of global greenhouse gas emissions has reached a turning point: China's emissions exceeded all developed countries in 2019. The emissions of China and the OECD average (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) per capita in 2019 have approached each other.

Chinese emissions for 2019 were 14.09 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent (a universal unit for measuring emissions of various greenhouse gases with different global warming potential), while the OECD average was 14.06 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent.

Researchers also expect China's per capita emissions in 2020 to exceed the average for all these countries.

Today, China's emissions account for more than a quarter of the world's total emissions. Per capita, they amounted to over 10 tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2019. This is still well below the US level of 17.6 tonnes per capita, reports Rhodium, the US global trend advisory research group that compared Chinese and OECD emissions data.

However, the issue of emissions in China is completely different when we consider the historical context. It is important to keep this in mind to understand why industrialized nations have greater responsibility to fight global warming, even if emissions growth is currently concentrated in the Asia-Pacific region.

China has declared that in 2030 its emissions will peak and will decline until 2060 when the country intends to be climate neutral.

(300gospodarka)