What is the worlds largest air polluter per head of population?

Answer 1

setMenu() Australia now world's biggest polluter. This article, "The climate Project" was copied on Dec 2009 from an article by the Australian Conservation Foundation.

Australians carry the burden of being the worlds largest polluter

Australia now world's biggest polluter

Date: 16-Sep-2009

Australia has been put on the map for all the wrong reasons. It's the one world first that Australia did not want to win - the title of world's biggest polluter.

A report by British risk analysis company Maplecroft has found that Australia has overtaken the United States as the world's largest polluter and is now leading the world in per capita emissions of CO2, topping a list of 185 countries.

The report said Australia's reliance on coal creates an average output of 20.58 tonnes of CO2 per person, ahead of the United States which comes in at 19.78 tonnes.

China is still ranked as the world's worst overall polluter but even then, it has a per capita average of about 4.5 tonnes. In other words, Australia produces nearly five times as much CO2 per head of population as the world's largest nation.

The report shows how much work Australia has to do to achieve a global emissions reduction target, particularly as it has the highest per capita rate in the world.

Tony Mohr, climate change program manager at the Australian Conservation Foundation, said it would give Australia a real credibility problem at the summit when dealing with developing countries and put more pressure on Australia to fund their efforts tackling climate change.

"For so long we have had so little in terms of climate change policy and our emission per capita is just so bad,'' Mohr said.

"Countries like India and China will be able to say you have such a high greenhouse gas intensity, your targets need to be stronger and your assistance to developing countries needs to larger."

The study coincides with the alarming findings in the first ever carbon competitiveness reports showing that Australia ranked among the worst in the world for being carbon competitive. The Climate Institute report, which analysed productivity versus emissions, ranked Australia 15th in an analysis of its capacity to generate business in a low carbon economy. This was the lowest position of any industrialised country.

Greens deputy leader Christine Milne attacked the Rudd Government's support for high polluting industries, including its automotive industry package. "The Rudd Government's obsession with sandbagging jobs in the biggest polluting sectors of our economy is short-sighted in the extreme and bound to end in tears,'' she said.

"Billions of dollars are being handed out to polluters under the pretense of protecting jobs, while sunrise industries which promise to create far more, higher quality jobs are left begging."

The poor results signal the difficulties Australia might face at the Copenhagen summit in December.