To achieve sustainable levels of global heating, humanity has to reduce its' "Carbon Footprint" - which is measured in "tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents" (that is heating equivalents) or tCO2eq's per year. These are well established, since 1896 and earlier. And, for the heating equivalents, we now have "budgets", for 2 degrees Celsius of global warming, or for 1.5 deg C of global warming. Set in billions of tonnes of CO2eq that we can afford to add to the atmosphere, to achieve those levels of heating.
Since I was born in 1961, the heating layer has gone from 318 ppm to 419 ppm today. So the "heating layer" - or concentration of CO2 - the main heating gas - has gone up by a third. Thus already achieving climatic records every year, and almost 1 deg C of global average heating. Hotter atmospheres carry more water.
Personally - I have a relatively efficient, small and well insulated home - so I use only 1000kWh of electricity and 3500 kWh of gas pp/yr. Or, in other words, 1.0 tonnes of CO2eq (at current emission factors). Plus 2.1 tonnes for my food (as I don't really eat beef/lamb* and I often have beans or soya). My footprint does however include around another 3 tCO2eq at work (owing to a very draughty Victorian building that, for most occupants, is too-hot and too-cold). But, I don't own a car and haven't flown anywhere for 9 years.
By contrast the averages, per person, for the UK are nearly 3 tonnes for gas+electricity, 5 tonnes for food (with over 3 tCO2eq for the average beef/lamb consumption alone), 3.6 tCO2eq/yr for a car, and over 1.5 tCO2eq for a short overseas holiday.
However according to the World Bank, looking at national boundary emissions, UK emissions in 2016 were only 7.1 tCO2eq per capita per year, whereas, according to what I compiled (above) from good sources, our footprint is more like 11-13 tCO2eq/cap/yr. So really, unless I am very much mistaken, we must "offshore" a lot of our emissions, in food/ manufactures/ and holidays.
*An excellent summary of food emissions may be found at www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46459714
**Published in "Place Matters, Issue 22, July 2020, DP-URC, Cambridge".
