Luton Outlaws - Independent Message Board for Luton Town FC

Comparatively we are already doing our fair share. The key word there is comparitively.

Personally I don't fully agree with the historical argument anyway. At the height of the British Empire we also had the worst ever levels of poverty in this country. We may have built wealth off the back of carbon intensive behaviour but it wasn't shared out then, so why should Joe Public have that burden of guilt placed on them now?

But just for clarity according to Google historically since 1750 these are the stats:

US 24%
China 15%
Russia/USSR 7%
Germany 5.2%
UK 4.4%
Japan 3.8%

But as I have said my ancestors didn't benefit especially from that historical output.

So for arguments sake let's consider a more recent set of stats for 2024:

Top 10
China: 12.28 billion metric tons
United States: 4.9 billion metric tons
India: 3.19 billion metric tons
Russia: 1.78 billion metric tons
Japan: 0.96 billion metric tons
Indonesia: 0.81 billion metric tons
Iran: 0.79 billion metric tons
Saudi Arabia: 0.69 billion metric tons
South Korea: 0.58 billion metric tons
Germany: 0.57 billion metric tons

UK for the same period 0.312 billion metric tonnes
Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/270499/co2-emissions-in-selected-countries/

One example I disagree with of tax hikes is road tax. My petrol car was zero tax because it was deemed green. This year without any prior communication it was suddenly £20. Still a small amount. But if I buy a supposedly greener electric car my tax goes up to £200. Same if I buy another newer petrol or diesel car. A 10x increase. There's no justification for that based on the information listed above. My carbon footprint is tiny, yet the government thinks a 10x road tax increase if I get a newer/greener car is fair. I think it's not fair and I am not incentivises to get an electric car or a newer petrol or diesel car at this point in time.