In the coverage and commentary I've seen on climate change in recent days, some have noted that Canada produces only two per cent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.
The U.S. produces 25 per cent, which it claims to be a paltry contribution.
Canada has .04 per cent of the world's population, and the U.S. about five per cent.
Essentially, both countries punch well above their weight when it comes to emitting GHGs into the atmosphere. They contribute five times more than they should when compared to their share of the global population.
Addendum
The Bush administration, which until recently avoided directly accepting that humans were warming the planet in potentially harmful ways, embraced the findings, which had been approved by representatives from the United States and 112 other countries on Thursday night.
Administration officials asserted Friday that the United States had played a leading role in studying and combating climate change, in part by an investment of an average of almost $5 billion a year for the past six years in research and tax incentives for new technologies.
At the same time, Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman rejected the idea of unilateral limits on emissions. “We are a small contributor to the overall, when you look at the rest of the world, so it’s really got to be a global solution,” he said.
The United States, with about 5 percent of the world’s population, contributes about a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions, more than any other country.
Meanwhile, in Canada (from The Globe and Mail):
(Prime Minister Stephen) Harper lashed out at the three opposition parties for pursuing what he termed the “fantasy” that Canada's commitment to cut its greenhouse-gas releases under the Kyoto Protocol -- a 6-per-cent reduction from 1990 levels by 2012 -- can be met.
Mr. Harper said the initial goal is to stabilize Canada's rising emissions over the coming years.
“I think the first realistic step in any such plan will be to try over the next few years to stabilize emissions and obviously over the longer term to reduce them,” he said. “I don't think realistically we can tell Canadians: Stop driving your car; stop going to work; turn the heat off in the winter. These are not realistic solutions.”