Emergence, Distribution Dynamics and Drivers of Global High-Emission Countries Since the Industrial Revolution

The CO2 emission from fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution is associated with critical development rights driven by economic and population growth. We defined high-emission countries as major emitters whose emission contributed 80% to global emission based on descending order of national emission, and analysed their emergence, distribution dynamics and drivers, which expect to unravel the processes of their emission surges and entwined carbon inequality in history. Our results show that: 1) 31 countries formed the group of high-emission countries and hardly exit from group; 2) high-emission countries appeared in Europe first, then spread to North America, Asia and finally throughout all continents; 3) population growth and economic growth stimulated the rapid emission growth of earliest industrialised countries and several short phases after industrialisation finished, respectively. Blend impacts transformed most developing countries to high-emission countries after World War II. We also discussed glooming climate mitigation ambitions because of pervasive carbon inequity.