There’s a lot of press today about the fact that 55 countries have submitted emissions reduction pledges to the U.N. as the deadline drew passed; note that 27 of them are in the EU. New Scientist has a nice summary, and Reuters India lists most of the targets.

Some of the more disappointing targets include our own, our neighbors to the north, and Korea. “The US previously pledged a cut of 17% from 2005 levels by 2020 (equivalent to 3% from the conventional baseline of 1990)” (BBC). True to its word, the increasingly conservative Canadian government submitted the same relative target as the U.S. South Korea—whose emissions have more than doubled since 1990—has committed to an even smaller cut of 4% of 2005 levels. However, it has tries to play up the significance of these cuts by calling them a 30% cut from business as usual.

Below you can find a summary of the pledges of the top eight emitters (78%) of carbon dioxide, and what their effect might be. Please note that barring an international agreement in Mexico next winter, China and India’s targets are even less firm than those of other nations since they have vowed to decrease intensity (increase efficiency) by 40-45% & 16-20% respectively, rather than make cuts towards a specific target. These estimates are therefore a best case scenario under the unlikely condition of zero future growth.

MT = megatonne. approximately 2.2 billion pounds.
Countries 7 & 8 are the United Kingdom and Germany, both members of the European Union.

Sources: Emissions data, and pledges from stories linked in this post.