The USA is more responsible for climate change than any country

When you can get conservatives and libertarians to admit that global warming is real, serious, and caused by humans, almost inevitably they start pointing fingers at India and China. What is the reality of the USA’s contributions to global warming vs the rest of the world’s?

Putting things in balance.

It’s worth casting our eyes back over different points in history with visualizations from Our World in Data’s site CO₂ and other Greenhouse Gas Emissions to help answer this question. Let’s start at the turn of the 20th Century.

Which countries were already racking up big emissions? The UK was in the lead with 17.7 billion tons as befits its status as origin of both the steam locomotive and the Industrial Revolution. The USA wasn’t far behind at 11.4 billion tons. Germany was lagging at 6.73 billion tons. China? 95 thousand tons.

But things have changed since then, right? Oh, yeah. Let’s fast forward to 1966.

Read the Medium story by Michael Barnard - “The USA is more responsible for climate change than any country.”