The Rest of The World's Track Record

The onset of climate change is a global threat and the effort to combat it must also be global. The acceleration of climate change and the increase in global temperatures has been caused by human activity, with it being scientifically argued that people are the single biggest cause of changes to the earth’s natural systems. Some nations are more responsible for this than others, while other countries are more susceptible to feel the effects of these changes sooner.

So which countries are the biggest energy guzzling culprits, and which will feel the force of climate change in our lifetimes? We breakdown some of the different areas of the world to get an understanding of what’s going on globally:

Europe

Europe as a whole has above average carbon emissions levels, with the worst country being Germany. There have, however, been measures taken to try and combat this.

The European Climate Change Programme (ECCP) was launched in June 2000 by the European Union's European Commission, with the principle goal of reducing carbon emissions in accordance with the Kyoto Treaty. Many European nations are signed up to the Kyoto treaty, which sets out a legal requirement for nations to reduce their carbon emissions by 12.5% by 2012.

The European Union Greenhouse Gas Emission Trading Scheme is perhaps the most significant contribution of the ECCP, and is the largest greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme in the world. It sets targets for each participating country and specifies caps on greenhouse gas emissions for individual power plants.

In terms of how climate change will affect Europe, the continent has already been experiencing some extremes of temperature and weather. In the summers of 2002 and 2006, there were heatwaves in the UK, floods in Germany, bad storms in northern Italy - with hailstones the size of tennis balls - and drought in southern Europe. It’s thought that this sort of weather will become more regular. The Mediterranean will experience hotter and drier weather, with more droughts and crop failures. Ice glaciers in the Alps will decline. Meanwhile, areas of Northern Europe could see increased rainfall and flooding.

The USA

The USA is the world's largest producer of CO2. This is because it has the highest material wealth in the world, in total and on a per person basis. Americans are also famous for their love of petrol and gas guzzling cars.

So far, the US’s stance on combating climate change has been largely criticised, most famously for the US’s refusal to commit to the Kyoto Treaty. Al Gore’s recent film ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ has raised the profile of climate change, and there is feeling that the US president will agree a cap on emissions for the first time later this year. It’s thought that a follow-up treaty to Kyoto may follow, setting out further key measures against climate change.

Asia

The biggest increases in carbon emissions come from areas in Asia currently undergoing a similar industrial revolution as has already occurred in the Western world. Despite this faster growth in emissions, these countries still emit fewer emissions per head of population than wealthier countries in Europe and North America. However unless countries such as India and China adopt more environmentally friendly methods of growing economically, levels of global CO2 emissions may worsen.

These areas will also feel the effects of climate change. Rises in sea levels and increased dangers of monsoons and the El Nino effect could lead to more people being displaced, greater famine and crop failure.

Africa

Africa is the continent most at risk from global warming as the poorest continent, as countries may not be able to afford mitigation strategies of their own without intervention from the Western world. This said, African nations create significantly lower levels of CO2 compared with other countries. Chad boasts the lowest per capita emissions in the world.The effects on African nations, however, are extreme. Firstly, it’s thought that the deserts of Africa will grow even further by encroaching on currently arable farmed land – meaning more famine, food shortage and clean water supply. There will also be an increased likelihood of disease spreading.

The Artic and Antarctic

As largely unpopulated areas of the globe, the Arctic and Antarctic have contributed very little to climate change. However the effects of changes in the world’s temperature are already being heavily felt in these parts of the world. And changes here will have a big knock on effect to the rest of the world.

According to findings from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the last time the polar regions experienced such increases in temperature (around 125,000 years ago) there was a four to six metre rise in global sea levels and a significant decline in the ice sheets. This is already having a detrimental effect on Arctic and Antarctic wildlife, whose natural ice habitat is literally melting away. Some scientists suggest that the Arctic will be completely ice free in the summer by the end of the century.