What is the U.S. share of world greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning?
Based on 2004 data (the latest available), the U.S. is responsible for 22% of the world’s CO2 emissions from fuel-burning. Because fewer than 5% of the world’s people are Americans, per capita we emit 5 to 6 times as much CO2 as the average non-American; historically, the disparity is even greater. (Carbon dioxide molecules persist in Earth’s atmosphere for around a century, which means that our past emissions are causing climate change now and in the future.) On any moral calculus, the United States bears a heavy responsibility to cut emissions massively and rapidly.
