The United Arab Emirates, Australia and the US are the worst carbon polluters, where businesses are most in danger of facing pressure to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the UK risk analysts Maplecroft said.
The UAE dropped 15 places from the previous year to take over from Australia as the worst-performing nation, Bath, UK-based Maplecroft said Wednesday in an emailed statement.
That’s because its overall emissions from burning fossil fuels rose by a quarter from 2006 to 2008, when data was used to calculate the current index, the analyst said.
Canada, the Netherlands and Saudi Arabia joined those three nations as the six considered at “extreme” risk of facing pressure or regulations to slash emissions of heat-trapping gases, according to the index of 183 countries.
Businesses in Russia, Germany, the UK, France and China all face a “high” risk while Chad was categorized as the least in danger.
“As the world moves toward a low carbon economy, more rigorous environmental policies may leave companies exposed to costly operating expenses and new investment requirements,” Maplecroft’s head of indices, Fiona Place, said in the statement. “Energy-intensive sectors, such as the extractive sector and logistics, will be particularly vulnerable.”
National emissions per capita in 2008, the most recent year of data, take up 50 percent of the weighting in Maplecroft’s index while cumulative emissions since 1900 and greenhouse gas output for 2008 accounted for 25 percent each of the ranking.
Rapid economic growth and an increase in sourcing water from energy-intensive desalination plants led to the UAE’s sinking to the bottom of the table, Maplecroft said.
Qatar had the greatest emissions per capita of the 183 nations at 74.1 metric tons of carbon dioxide followed by Bahrain and the UAE.
China, deemed the 26th worst polluter overall, had the highest emissions in 2008, ahead of the US, Russia, India and Japan. The U.S. had the biggest cumulative emissions followed by China, Russia, Germany and the U.K.
The study comes 12 days before United Nations climate change talks begin in Cancun, Mexico. The negotiations ultimately aim to produce a global deal to fight climate change though Christiana Figueres, who leads the talks as executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, has said a “silver bullet” solution won’t be found in Cancun and that negotiators should aim for a package of measures on forestry, finance and technology rather than a full treaty.
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