Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg received attention UN’s Climate Action Summit 2019 on Monday. This summit created to avoid the worst effects of global warming. So, Greta Thunberg complaint to 5 countries which are Turkey, France, Germany, Brazil and Argentina due to they didn’t take sufficient steps to climate change. Citizens of these countries started to talk about that this assessment is incorrect. According to them, there are other countries which have huge heat-trapping gases such as US, China and Russia. They also said that like these actions took place to protest the 5 countries. Apart from these common discourses, let us look at the graphics in recent years.
Let us evaluate the data made by the International Energy Agency in 2016[1], which estimates carbon dioxide(CO2) emissions from the combustion of coal, natural gas, oil and other fuels. There are 20 countries about to form firstly is China and secondly is US in the list. According to the agency’s chart, Asian countries have 53% of CO2 emissions in the world. These are consisting from China(29%), India(7%), Russia(5%), Japan(4%), S.Korea(2%), Iran(2%), Saudi Arabia(2%), Indonesia(1%) and Turkey(1%). (Meantime, in this work, Asian countries are not only from the Far East, but are evaluated over 48 countries which are UN-designated[2]). When we look at the data of 2017[3], China came first, followed by US. There are these Asian countries in the top 20 of the list. And we should not forget that the top 20 countries in these last years lists consists from developed and developing countries and their industries are developing day by day.
When we consider the current trade wars between China and the US (or Japan and South Korea) and military-defense equipments or weapons of various categories (nuclear & chemical, etc.), we can see that the world will continue to produce and spread greenhouse gases such as CO2 rapidly. Because the trade wars, this global race shows that competitors will continue to factory and production without slowing down. Thus industries will emit CO2 rapidly. Countries compete according to their manufacturing. Therefore, China and the US are the top two competitors among the 10 countries[4] and there are also 3 major Asian countries in this list.(S.Korea, Japan and India) Another issue is despite the signing of agreements on the proliferation and use of weapons, such as nuclear or biological weapons, which can cause major vital losses, they have not been prevented to use and product. Today, 9 countries have nuclear weapons and 5 of them are Asian countries (China, Russia, North Korea, India, Pakistan) 16 countries have biological weapons programs, 7 of which are Asian countries. (China, Iran, Iraq, Japan, North Korea, Russia and Syria). Now, can you see this greenhouse gas hazard in Asia?
In a conclusion, CO2 is known as a greenhouse gas that absorbs and emits thermal radiation. As a whole, developed and developing large economy countries cause the most CO2 emissions in the world. Today, Asian countries are developing rapidly and have advanced in many fields such as industry, defense, transportation and space. And according to the datas, we see that the Asian continent continues to emit CO2 rapidly. Therefore, Asia should be the pioneer of all kinds of environmental and climatic actions for the future.
[1] via: ucsusa.org. (2018, October 11). Each Country’s Share of CO2 Emissions. Retrieved from Union of Concerned Scientists
[2] UN.org. United Nations Regional Groups of Member States. Retrieved from Department for General Assembly and Conference Management
[3] EDGAR. (2017, October 30). Fossil CO2 emissions of all world countries, 2018 report. Retrieved from Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR)Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR)
[4] Victor Kiprop. (2019, August 27). 10 Countries With The Highest Industrial Outputs In The World. Retrieved from World Atlas
