Study: Richest Indians emit less CO2 than poorest Americans

The trends from the data for both countries show a positive co-relation between growth in income and growth in carbon. But even the super rich in India — meaning the top 2 per cent in the income distributio — emit between 4.6 tonnes and 6.8 tonnes CO2 annually. The poorest 10 per cent of the American population has a higher ran—e ¿ between 4.3 and 8 tonnes annually.

A larger,more representative Indian mass — the richest 10 per cent of the population emits between 3.4 and 5 tonnes CO2 annually. In comparison,the richest 10 per cent US population emits more than ten times: between 52 and 69 tonnes.

The richest two per cent of the US population emit in triple figures — between 73 and 111 tonnes CO2.

This refutes the argument that India is defending its so-called lack of commitments behind India’s poor. Developed countries and even officials from UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have called on India and China to take emission cuts as they are both growing economies and looked at as countries whose emission rates are growing. India has been accused of citing that it has a huge poor population in defence of not taking emission cuts.

“This goes to show that even the richest in India have emissions which are very low compared to other countries. This also shows that we need to make sure the US becomes part of the global environment deal. The Americans have to reduce and they have to reduce drastically,” said Sunita Narain from CSE,also a member of the Prime Minister’s Advisory Council on Climate Change.

The findings come at a time when the emissions from the developed world are only rising: latest UNFCCC figures show that emissions from rich countries increased over 12 per cent between 1990 and 2007,and carbon dioxide emissions from the US increased by 20.2 per cent between 1990 and 2007.

“The fact that our emissions are low should not stop us from pursuing our domestic action plan — we have to keep working on emission reduction,but at the same time,ask the developed world to help us in doing that,” Narain said.