Sydney - Australia has overtaken the United States as the country that produces more carbon dioxide per person than any other, the British risk assessment company Maplecroft Ltd said Friday. Canada, the Netherlands and Saudi Arabia rounded out Maplecroft's list of the top five per-capita emitters of greenhouse gases from fossil fuels.
Australia relies on coal for more than 80 per cent of its power generation, which is the reason the country emits an annual average of 20.5 tons of carbon dioxide per person. The second-placed US has an annual average of 19.7 tons per person.
However, the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases is China, which recently overtook the US in total volume. China's annual per-capita average is far lower at 4.5 tons while India's is less still at 1.1 tons.
The Maplecroft survey ranked 185 countries. Commenting on its findings, climate change expert Barry Brook said Australia had more work to do than other developed countries. He noted that France has about one-third of Australia's level of carbon emissions.
"Australia has about five times the per-capita emissions of China, for instance, but China produces over 20 times the carbon emissions of Australia because China has such a huge population," Adelaide University's Brook said.
