Graphs Explain the World’s Top 10 Emitters
Our ability to harness everexpanding amounts of data is
completely transforming our
understanding of environmental
problems and solutions. Our
Climate Insights blog series [4]
leverages data from CAIT 2.0
[5], WRI’s climate data explorer,
to shed light on the many
dimensions of climate change
that shape society, policy, and global development.
All eyes are on Lima, Peru, where country representatives will gather next week for the annual
U.N. climate negotiations (COP 20) [6]. One question is at the heart of these negotiations: How
can countries reduce emissions enough to collectively limit global temperature rise to 2 degrees
C [7], thus preventing the worst impacts of climate change [8]?
In Lima and over the next several months, countries are expected to put forward new national
emissions-reduction pledges for achieving this target in the decades to come. WRI’s recently
published the CAIT Equity Explorer [9] can help assess the equitability [10] of these pledges.
While equity considerations [11] include more than just emissions—and all countries must take
action to mitigate climate change—the actions of the world’s top emitters will likely be most
heavily scrutinized—and rightly so: According to recent data, 10 countries produce around 70
percent of global GHG emissions.
