A new study attributes the largest share of global warming blame to richer countries – especially the US and members of the European Union (EU). The conclusion came after an analysis of 50 years of history of exploitation, showing that the two names mentioned above are, alone, responsible for almost two-thirds of this exploitation – of which much of it is in excess.

The premise establishes an interesting paradox, categorically stating that, despite being the minority of the world population, it is the rich who end up leveraging one of the main problems faced by the world today.

According to the study, the volumes of use of natural resources were analyzed, a factor that, by scientific consensus, is one of the starting points for any statistical analysis on environmental degradation.

The results show that between 1970 and 2017, about 2.5 trillion tons of resources were extracted and used by high-dividend nations – i.e., rich countries – with 74% of this volume being allocated to the US, EU and China in this order. Furthermore, of this number, almost half – or 1.1 trillion tons – were considered excessive, i.e. resources overused and not even needed.

The US leads this, with responsibility for 27% of natural resource consumption, followed by the EU and the UK. China stood at 15%. An interactive page created by the team that signs the survey allows us to analyze on a case-by-case basis. The page does not list all countries by name, but Latin America – where Brazil is located – is responsible for "only" 8%.

"Richer countries urgently need to reduce the use of aggregate resources to more sustainable levels," says an excerpt from the paper published in the scientific journal The Lancet Planetary Health. "On average, the use of resources of this type needs to drop by at least 70% to reach the acceptable volume."

Jason Hickel, an economic anthropologist at the Universitat Autònoma in Barcelona, Spain and primary author of the study, said on Twitter that this issue may require "a review of what the global economy should be".

"Our results show that super rich nations have most of the responsibility for our ecological collapse, and so they have an environmental debt to the rest of the world," Hickel said. "These countries need to take the lead in making radical reductions in their uses of natural resources in order to avoid further degradation that will likely require innovative post-growth and economic shrinkage approaches."

Translating: the unceasing search for ever-increasing profits is unsustainable.

Source: OLHAR DIGITAL