Title: Emergence, distribution dynamics and drivers of global high-emission countries since the Industrial Revolution

Authors: Hansunbai Li; Yu Ye; Hongxia Li; Qian Ye

Addresses: School of Geography, Faculty of Geographical Science, Beijing Normal University, China ' School of Geography, Faculty of Geographical Science, Beijing Normal University, China; Key Laboratory of Environment Change and Natural Disaster, Ministry of Education, Beijing Normal University, China ' School of Geography, Faculty of Geographical Science, Beijing Normal University, China ' Faculty of Geographical Science, Beijing Normal University, China

Abstract: The CO₂ emission from fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution is associated with critical development rights driven by economic and population growth. We defined high-emission countries as major emitters whose emission contributed 80% to global emission based on descending order of national emission, and analysed their emergence, distribution dynamics and drivers, which expect to unravel the processes of their emission surges and entwined carbon inequality in history. Our results show that: 1) 31 countries formed the group of high-emission countries and hardly exit from group; 2) high-emission countries appeared in Europe first, then spread to North America, Asia and finally throughout all continents; 3) population growth and economic growth stimulated the rapid emission growth of earliest industrialised countries and several short phases after industrialisation finished, respectively. Blend impacts transformed most developing countries to high-emission countries after World War II. We also discussed glooming climate mitigation ambitions because of pervasive carbon inequity.

Keywords: FFCO₂; high-emission countries; distribution dynamics; emission threshold; emission drivers.

DOI: 10.1504/IJGW.2023.130137

International Journal of Global Warming, 2023 Vol.29 No.4, pp.383 - 394

Received: 31 Mar 2022
Accepted: 17 Jul 2022
Published online: 05 Apr 2023 *

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