Historically, the US has been responsible for about 28% of all ghgs, higher than any other single country, iirc.
[snip]
As A4R pointed out, China is now the highest emitter as a country (but not per capita--thanks for that list, Bob. What the hell is going on with Luxemburg??).
One is mixing statistics here though - total historic emissions vs per capita. If you take total per capita historic emissions:
From
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/21/countries-responsible-climate-change"Of course, it's also possible to look at historical emissions per person, which turns things around yet again. In this view, the UK shoots close to the top of the rankings, while China drops towards the bottom.
1. Luxembourg: 1,429 tonnes
2. UK: 1,127 tonnes
3. US: 1,126 tonnes
4. Belgium: 1,026 tonnes
5. Czech Republic: 1,006 tonnes
6. Germany: 987 tonnes
7. Estonia: 877 tonnes
8. Canada: 780 tonnes
9. Kazakhstan: 682 tonnes
10. Russia: 666 tonnes"
As a member of both the G8 and permanent UN security council the failure of the UK given historic responsibility to lead on climate change is nothing short of despicable. The excuse trotted out tends to be "but we only cause 1% of global emissions" which is irrelevant - the question is one of example, not excuse making and nationalistic self interest.
So "who goes first" to break the deadlock? I'd argue for the countries heading that list above, especially the ones in dominant positions in terms of global influence.
China built thousands of coal-fired power plants in the last couple decades, and whatever "leadership" they may take now, unless they rapidly close these, they are going to continue to be major contributors to the problem. They are also greatly increasing their meat consumption, mostly through huge industrial operations that are major sources of CO2 and methane.
Given where they started from and their lack of historic responsibility and the aggressive and unhelpful negotiating stances being taken by the nations with historic responsibility, I think China is doing pretty well overall. Their meteoric rise up the total emissions table is extremely concerning, and yet with 1.4 billion people - by no means equivalent to the western nations (yet).
Their people just want the same dream that was sold in western nations - the fact that it's a nightmare doesn't alter the desires of the populace. Their leadership seem to have a good grasp on the issues facing the nation - even if their policies sometimes leave things to be desired.
I can't help but feel the Chinese would come into line pretty quick in terms of further improvement if the historically responsible and affluent western nations would reach further across the table.
A decade ago one might have said the western nations should help China with knowledge and funding - but now it's pretty clear they've helped themselves rather efficiently (and are an ascendant superpower). Now, all one could say is that the westernised nations should lead by example to show they are equally committed to action on climate change. This would accelerate progress on these issues
anyway as more funding would be available (and the price of solutions would fall as production scale and maturity rose). A sustainable future is the only cost effective long term future anyway, unless you don't value future human life (which I often think pure free market capitalism doesn't really).