South Korea's Contribution to Climate Change

The CO₂ emissions have steadily increased in South Korea since it began industrialization after the Korean War.  There is a sudden decline in CO₂ emissions particularly liquid emissions that coincide with the Asian Stock Market Crash of 1997.

The Republic of Korea began emitting pollution during the Korean War most likely due to the large influx of war machines from the USSR, US and North Korea. 

South Korea started emitting even more pollution when it was being rebuilt into a more industrialized nation after the war.

The Carbon emissions per capita were at 3.21 metric tons or 68.29%, compared to the US’s at 4.7.  One of the main causes of this was that most Koreans didn't have cars until recently.  For the most part the population moves around on subways, buses, commuter trains and now bullet trains. 

The Republic of Korea ranks 23^rd in the world for amount of CO₂ emissions per capita compared the US which is ranked 12^th.

After personally seeing the scope and breadth of the Korean production sector I am a little surprised they are not higher on the list. 

Compared to the other countries on the graph South Korea ranks quite low.  The only country that ranked lower than it was Italy and only because there was a drop in production due to the Eurozone Debt Crisis. 

Per Capita Qatar is the biggest producer of CO₂ emissions at 10.94 metric tons per person; while in total China is producing 2,259,856 metric tons, its per capita number is only 1.68 metric tons per person because it has a lot more “per capita” than Qatar to divvy up all that CO₂. 

If the US and China are to be compared on a per capita basis then the US is more than twice the polluter that China is.  While China has over four times the population of the US, the US produces 64% the amount of pollution China does.  

The US has produced far more carbon emissions than any other industrialized nation.

In comparison with the US; no other country can reach half of the quantity of emissions that the US has produced since 1900.

These numbers differ from the Keeling Curve in the way that the Keeling Curve is a record of total carbon levels in different times of the year.  Carbon emissions over a period enter the air-stream and only add to the Keeling curve over time.  The carbon cycle takes time so emission accumulates over time, making the Keeling Curve grow over time at an increased rate.