4 ms·
Emissions per GDP is a bit of a weird metric It seems that way. But considering that so much of the emissions are produced in the course of producing goods, it
by CWuestefeld 10y ago
Emissions per GDP is a bit of a weird metric
It seems that way. But considering that so much of the emissions are produced in the course of producing goods, it makes sense to tie the emissions to the production. In the extreme case, where a single nation produces all goods consumed by the world, we'd expect the large portion of global emissions to come from that one nation, and the emissions of the rest of the world to be very significantly lower.
Obviously this isn't perfect. Other activities than production produce emissions - notably transportation. But I believe that those dollars are captured in the GDP total.
I think we then get down to "which people are profligate consumers", and I'm not sure how to factor that in.
- soVeryTired 10y agoBut GDP is not the same thing as production of goods. Here's wikipedia's breakdown of US GDP by industry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States#GDP_by_industry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States#G... These industries are emphatically not equal contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. So it makes little sense to aggregate them and measure the emissions to GDP ratio.