This inequality in global emissions lies at the heart of why international agreement on climate change has (and continues to be) so contentious. This is reflected in per capita emissions the average North American is more than 17 times higher than the average African. Asia is home to 60 percent of the population but emits just 49 percent Africa has 16 percent of the population but emits just 4 percent of CO 2. Asia and Africa are underrepresented in emissions. North America is home to only five percent of the world population but emits nearly 18 percent of CO 2 (almost four times as much). When aggregated by region we see that North America, Oceania, Europe, and Latin America have disproportionately high emissions relative to their population. The richest of the global population would be responsible for an even larger share of global emissions. If we were to calculate this distribution by the income of individuals, rather than countries, we’d see that the global inequalities in emissions would be even greater. It’s estimated that within-country inequalities in emissions can be as large as those between countries. These figures therefore don’t take account of inequalities in emissions within countries. For example, ‘low income’ is the total emissions of all countries defined as low income, rather than the lowest income individuals in the world. Note here that the summary by income is on the basis of country income groupings, rather than that of individuals. At the other end of the distribution however, adding only one billion high income individuals would increase global emissions by almost one-third. 3 or 4 billion low income individuals would only account for a few percent of global CO 2. Even several billion additional people in low-income countries - where fertility rates and population growth is already highest - would leave global emissions almost unchanged. This provides a strong indication of the relative sensitivity of global emissions to income versus population. The very poorest countries (home to 9 percent of the global population) are responsible for just 0.5 percent. The bottom half (low and lower-middle income) only 14%. When aggregated in terms of income, we see in the visualization that the richest half (high and upper-middle income countries) emit 86 percent of global CO 2 emissions.
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