The 1 Percent Outrage

Of all the claims about why we shouldn’t reduce UK carbon emissions, the most insidious is this: we’re just 1% of global emissions so it won’t make any difference.

We hear it from populists. Farage argues that cutting domestic emissions is pointless because the UK produces only a tiny 1% fraction of global greenhouse gases.

We hear it from political grandees. In his intervention last month, Tony Blair maintained that the UK’s 1%  share of global emissions makes unilateral sacrifices illogical.

We hear it from pundits. In a recent podcast episode of The Rest Is Politics, Rory Stewart mused that “if you were somebody who was really focused on the big issues around climate, you would remind people that Britain is only 1% of direct emissions” and look elsewhere for answers.

It’s a dangerous claim because on the surface it seems reasonable to say that the UK is too small to make a significant impact and as a bit player shouldn’t be the one taking the lead on cutting emissions.

However, the drip-drip of “we’re not that bad in the grand scheme of things” has a lasting impact on how we perceive our contribution to making things better. To use the 1% excuse for doing less is an OUTRAGE. Here’s why:

Wake up and smell the heat

It’s no surprise to be told that last month was the hottest June on record for England and second warmest for the UK overall. Amid all the excited talk by meteorologists of breaking records there was the stark reality of a deadly heatwave with people succumbing to the hot temperatures.

To talk about extreme heat in the UK is to talk about the unbearable heat inside your home, no school or indoor play only, cancelled events, reduced transport services, lost income.

As our daily lives heat up for the worse, how many triggers do we need to take more action? As Prof Piers Forster, a climate scientist at the University of Leeds, puts it: “Future warming is driven by future emissions, so every tonne of carbon dioxide that a country or citizen can avoid emitting will improve temperature and heatwave outcomes for generations.”

Lies, damn lies and statistics

This popular phrase neatly sums up how statistics can be misused and mislead people. The issue with this 1% figure is not that it’s mathematically incorrect. It’s that we’re choosing a single and incomplete measure to bolster a weak argument.

Let’s put the filter of 1% into perspective. As a country we emitted total greenhouse gas pollution of roughly 360 million tonnes in 2025 and the UK ranks around 17 in the world for total annual emissions. We’re still polluting more tonnes of atmospheric carbon than 180 other countries.

On top of that, the UK was the global leader in emitting greenhouse gases on an industrial scale at the start, when the Industrial Revolution began. Since that time to present day, the UK has released almost 80,000 million (yes, 80 billion!) tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere.

The Global Carbon Budget has analysed historical cumulative carbon emissions since 1850. Over this period of atmospheric pollution, the UK ranks 4 in the world for total annual emissions. And since today’s global heating has been driven by historical emissions, the argument that our contribution today is insignificant does not stack up.

We can’t change the past but we’re still emitting roughly 9.5 tonnes of carbon per person annually – which is about double the global average today. This disproportionately high figure also excludes the emissions that we generate outside UK territory. The carbon emissions from manufacturing and transporting all of our imported goods (think products made in China and clothing from countries across Asia, for example) are overlooked, as are international shipping and international aviation. It’s much harder to measure these emissions so we simply don’t measure them.

The highest possible ambition

In the Paris agreement that almost every country in the world including the UK signed in 2015, governments are required to pursue “the highest possible ambition” in reducing their carbon emissions. This is appropriate given the situation is widely recognised as a crisis. There is no qualifier about benchmarking your ambition against countries or lowering your aims if others are doing less.

Europe is heating up faster

Climate change is unfair. Populations who contribute the least to global greenhouse gas emissions suffer the most severe consequences. Communities that are more vulnerable are at greater risk. There are profound imbalances geographically.

We focus on local action at Carbon Copy because the impact of global climate change is intensely local. Our definition of local is sub-national, but you can also look at the bigger picture for Europe as a whole. No matter what some politicians may like to say, we’re still part of Europe geographically.

Europe is the fastest warming continent in the world, warming more than twice as fast as the global average. In the recent June heatwave, some countries were experiencing extreme heat of over 40C. Europe has already warmed by around 2.5C compared to pre-industrial levels. Staying below a global temperature rise of 1.5C avoids irreversible damage to ecosystems and human livelihoods; we’re way beyond this safety threshold.

What you do in a country that’s part of the fastest warming continent matters because localised pollution makes a difference locally. We may contribute 1% globally but the UK is the second biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in Europe.

Bury oil and gas

The USA war in Iran that has led to closing the Strait of Hormuz has fuelled the hot debate about our nation’s energy supplies. To break this dependency on international supplies, we need a cheaper supply of domestic energy. The 1% argument is used opportunistically to support the idea of more drilling in the North Sea: let’s increase domestic production of oil and gas and worry about our relatively small emissions later.

Extracting more oil and gas from under the North Sea does not equate to cheaper fuel prices in the UK. Just look at the United States. The USA is the largest domestic oil producer in the world and yet the price of gas has gone up for Americans because oil and gas prices are fundamentally set by international markets.

Not only is electrical energy from renewables cheaper than from gas, but by limiting our dependency on gas, a UK power system dominated by renewables would reduce costs overall compared to the average electricity wholesale market price.

Wind, solar, wave, geothermal and nuclear combined would give the UK a reliable clean energy supply that’s more affordable and provides greater energy security from volatile international oil and gas markets. It would also help reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

A race to the top

At the heart of the 1% claim is an implicit assumption that we will become poorer and less comfortable as a result of a low-carbon lifestyle and so we should postpone the sacrifice. Populists go further and make this argument directly.

It’s a false assumption. Tackling the climate and nature crisis head-on can lead to a vibrant, fair and regenerative future. Countless research studies support this outcome. Speeding up on emissions reductions is a race to the top, not a race to the bottom.

There are two essential challenges in reducing our emissions from 1% of global emissions to zero. The first is to take away this notion of loss and focus on all the positive benefits beyond emissions reductions. We are moving towards something good rather than simply moving away from something bad.

The second is to ensure that the transition itself is fair. How we decarbonise, how we help our communities adapt to our changed climate, how we transition our economy – all of these things matter.

It’s in our own self-interest to take the lead and pursue the highest possible ambition. In the words of Dr Ella Gilbert, a climate scientist and Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) board member,

“The UK may account for just 1% of current global emissions, but we’re responsible for 100% of our own emissions and we have the opportunity to show global leadership by bringing them down.”