‘But we’re just 1% of emissions’: do smaller countries’ climate efforts matter?
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- Rishi Sunak in 2023, Scott Morrison in 2019, Friedrich Merz in July, and Giorgia Meloni later that year each cited their country's small share of global emissions — ranging from 1% to 6% — to resist deeper pollution cuts, with Merz arguing German climate neutrality 'would not prevent a single natural disaster.'
- The US, China, and India collectively emit just over half of global carbon pollution and were the only countries individually responsible for more than 5% of fossil fuel emissions in 2024, leaving the remaining 194 nations to account for just under half of yearly emissions.
- Far-right leaders and energy spokespeople from western Europe's five biggest economies — the UK, Germany, France, Spain, and Italy — have all invoked the 'just 1%' argument to justify weakening climate policy within the last two years.
- The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) identified 200 examples of such claims in national newspapers of 27 countries each responsible for less than 2% of global CO2 emissions last year, including a March 2025 Times editorial saying Britain 'can do little to stop' climate change.
- A YouGov poll for the ECIU found one in four Britons believe countries emitting less than 1% of global emissions should stop trying to reduce them, rising to half among Reform UK voters, whose leader Nigel Farage called it 'absolutely mindless' for such countries to 'beggar themselves.'
- Prof Piers Forster of the University of Leeds called the argument 'fallacious and simply buck-passing,' and ECIU board member Dr Ella Gilbert countered that 'the UK may account for just 1% of current global emissions, but we're responsible for 100% of our own.'
Why it matters: The argument has migrated from individual leaders into editorial pages and voter sentiment — one in four Britons and half of Reform UK voters now agree countries emitting less than 1% should stop cutting emissions. This shifts climate delay from elite rhetoric into a populist electoral platform, threatening the UK's net zero consensus and weakening the EU coalition ahead of the next policy cycle.
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