DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17970957
title: Dataset for: Decolonising Historical Deforestation and Forest Degradation Emissions Data Increases Industrialised Countries' Climate Responsibility

description: This record contains the data set generated for the article "Decolonising Historical Deforestation and Forest Degradation Emissions Data Increases Industrialised Countries' Climate Responsibility," currently under review for publication in the journal One Earth.

The values in the "control_frac_ISO" variables have been derived by the authors using the cShapes 2.0 dataset (Schvitz et al. 2022), the COLDAT dataset (Becker 2019) and their own further algorithms and decisions. They contain for each year and country (present-day boundaries) the fraction of colonial control by one of the eight main European colonial powers over the countries' territory in that year.

For example, if 50% of the territory of present-day country AAA (a former colony) was controlled by country BBB (a colonial power) from November 1 - December 31 of the year 1800, the variable control_frac_BBB would hold the value 0.0833 = (0.5 * (61 / 366) – 50% times 61 out of 366 days of the year) for the record for country AAA and the year 1800. Likewise, if country BBB continued to control 50% of AAA for the entirety of 1801, control_frac_BBB would be 0.5 for AAA in 1801. Similarly, if colonial power CCC were to control 100% of AAA for June 1 to August 31, 1802, the value for control_frac_CCC would be 0.252 = (1.0 * (92 / 365) – 100% times 92 out of 365 days of the year) for AAA in 1802.

These fractions are combined with the net emissions from deforestation, af/reforestation and wood harvest ("DWH emissions"), calculated from the OSCAR dataset (Gasser and Shrivastav 2023), to calculate amounts of these emissions that can be re-assigned to colonial powers based on the fraction of the territory and the year that they had control of the territory where the emissions originate.

 






Variable name

Description


iso3
ISO 3166 code for the country


country
Common English name for the country


region
Region. Any of the following: South Asia, Sub Saharan Africa, Middle East & North Africa, East Asia and Pacific, North America, Latin America, Western Europe


year
Year (1701-2023)


control_frac_ISO


A set of 8 variables, with ISO taking the values GBR, FRA, ESP, POR, NDL, BEL, ITA, GER, each containing the fraction (0-1) of the country and year that was under colonial control by colonial power ISO.



DWH_total
Total net emissions (in Mt CO2) from deforestation, af/reforestation and wood harvest for country-year. Source: Gasser and Shrivastav 2023


DWH_own
Part of DWH_total not reassigned to colonial powers


DWH_ISO
A set of 8 variables, with ISO taking the values GBR, FRA, ESP, POR, NDL, BEL, ITA, GER, each containing the part of DWH_total assigned to ISO.




Note: the sum of the products of control_frac_ISO and DWH_ISO for all 8 values of ISO as well as DHW_own should equal DHW_total

References:

Becker, Bastian (2019) Introducing COLDAT: The Colonial Dates Dataset. Bremen: University of Bremen, SOCIUM Research Center on Inequality and Social Policy. [https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/apvqm]

Gasser, Thomas and Gaurav Shrivastav (2023) "OSCAR contribution to the Global Carbon Budget 2023". [doi: 10.5281/zenodo.10716491]

Schvitz, Guy; Luc Girardin; Seraina Rüegger; Nils B. Weidmann; Lars-Erik Cederman and Kristian Skrede Gleditsch (2022) "Mapping the International System, 1886-2019: The CShapes 2.0 Dataset" in Journal of Conflict Resolution, 66(1), 144–161. [doi: 10.1177/00220027211013563]