China has now overtaken America as the world's largest single polluter, producing 23% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
The real pressure is from the expansion of human settlements.Population density in Africa is not high and the continent is a negligible polluter, producing less than one tonne of CO2 per head against 20 tonnes in the United States.
China has long been the world's largest polluter, producing almost double the amount of carbon dioxide than the world's second biggest polluter, the U.S.
"These defendants," Underwood said, speaking of the five polluters, "produce 650 million tons a year or 10% of U.S. emissions, and individually they produce amounts ranging from 1 to 3.5% of U.S. emissions".
As the two biggest polluters in the world (producing 18 and 24percentt of global greenhouse gas emissions, respectively) the US-China deal has been branded a game-changer.
Within that cap, emission rights are allocated to the polluters, and emissions produced beyond those rights are penalized.
But combining the two by subsidising renewable energy is, like many easy answers, the wrong solution.Governments can discourage companies and people from producing CO2 by making polluters pay or by reducing the costs of clean energy.
Polluters pump out carbon dioxide, which dissolves in seawater, producing carbonic acid.
The 'polluters pays' principle is the commonly accepted practice that those who produce pollution should bear the costs of managing it to prevent damage to human health or the environment.
He wants a cap-and-trade system, allowing polluters to buy permits to produce carbon dioxide and sell these to others if they cut their own emissions instead.
