Physical Address
23,24,25 & 26, 2nd Floor, Software Technology Park India, Opp: Garware Stadium,MIDC, Chikalthana, Aurangabad, Maharashtra – 431001 India
By Aayushi Sharma
Claim: World needs to Confront India and China as they are the biggest polluters
Fact: USA is the biggest polluters in terms of per capita emissions (about 6 times than India) and second biggest polluter in terms of total GHG emissions ( about 3 times than India)
Post link :
What does the post say?
The twitter post by the U.S. Presidential candidate Nikki Haley accusing India and China as ‘biggest polluters’ has gone viral over the Internet.
In the tweet, she said, “If we want to be serious about saving the environment, we need to confront India and China. They are some of the biggest polluters.”
Her comments have outraged Indian netizens over various social media platforms.
What we found?
About Nikki haley
Nikki Haley, an Indian-American politician, has announced her candidacy for president of the United States. In addition, she is the third Indian-American to run for president following Kamala Harris in 2020 and Bobby Jindal in 2016.
About the claim
False. India is not the biggest polluter, not bigger than the USA.
Data by UNEP
- According to United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP)’s Emission Gap report 2022, USA tops the list of the countries in terms of per capita emissions with 14tCO₂e, followed by Russia with 13tCO₂e and China with 9.7tCO₂e.
- World Average Per capita emission as per the report is 6.3 tons of CO₂e. Per Capita emission of India is fact below the world average with 2.4tCO₂e. Thus, per capita emission of the USA is about 6 times higher than that of India.
- However, in the case of total Greenhouse Gas Emissions, China tops the list followed by the USA.
- It should be noted that India is one of the top emitters, but when you look at per capita GHG emissions and take into account population, the highly populated nation ranks much lower than the other top 10 emitters.
Data by World Economic Forum
Reports from WEF also confirm that from the period of 1990-2019, USA has topped the list of per capita emissions. The data is presented in the graph as:
The graph shows that USA has been the top emitting country from 1990-2019
Contribution of different sectors in global emissions
The energy sector has continued to be the leading contributor to GHG emissions since reporting started in 1990, accounting for 76% of global emissions in 2019. This includes the production of electricity and heat as well as end uses in buildings, transportation, manufacturing, and construction.
Energy emissions have increased by 61.9% since 1990. However, energy emissions growth has slowed down since 2013, only increasing by 4% over the last five years. Land-use change and forestry is the only sector that has decreased its emissions since 1990 (14% decrease, fourth largest sector), although their values reached its lowest point in 2013 and have been steadily increasing since. All the other sectors continued to increase their emissions since 1990, including agriculture (16% increase, second largest sector), industrial emissions (203% increase, third largest sector), and waste (19.5% increase, fifth largest sector).
The tweet by Nikki Haley is filled with comments by various learned Indians who have showered various facts on it.
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