4 ms·

It's better than doing nothing, but the UAE has more than enough homework regarding carbon emissions reduction. Its per capita footprint is 25t CO2, 75% more th

by mrpopo 3y ago

It's better than doing nothing, but the UAE has more than enough homework regarding carbon emissions reduction. Its per capita footprint is 25t CO2, 75% more than the USA, which itself is 2.5x that of the EU. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita?tab=chart&country=ARE~USA~European+Union+%2828%29 https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita?t... Plus the UAE is ~10% citizens, 90% migrant foreigners. I'm not sure how per capita footprint of the UAE accounts for that (is a UAE citizen carbon footprint actually 250t CO2...?)

fakedang 3y ago
> Plus the UAE is ~10% citizens, 90% migrant foreigners. I'm not sure how per capita footprint of the UAE accounts for that (is a UAE citizen carbon footprint actually 250t CO2...?) It's close. Electricity is practically free for citizens, which is why their large homes are key peretualy cool and thoroughly well-lit, like what you'd see in a real estate marketing brochure.
- coffeebeqn 3y ago
  Somehow I doubt the migrant workers live in excessively AC’d mansions
  - WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
    > Somehow I doubt the migrant workers live in excessively AC’d mansions Your suspicions might be true: https://duckduckgo.com/?hps=1&q=%22united+arab+emirates%22+migrant+workers+housing+conditions&iax=images&ia=images https://duckduckgo.com/?hps=1&q=%22united+arab+emirates%22+m...
  - fakedang 3y ago
    CITIZENS Migrants aren't citizens, last I checked.
uluyol 3y ago
These stats can be misleading for other reasons as well. The US and EU have a lot of existing infrastructure, construction of which required enormous amounts of CO2 emissions. Countries that are still building out their infrastructure should be expected to expend more CO2 per capita to catch up. (Modern equipment is more effecient, but still).
- coffeebeqn 3y ago
  And they ship/externwlize much of their costs to other places. Just a few examples with China - US and EU send their plastic there for “recycling” and probably the majority of goods we use are manufactured in China so they can take the “carbon hit”
  - mrpopo 3y ago
    China doesn't take the world's plastic anymore, that comment is now 4 years outdated. Since then, some of it was shipped to south-east Asian countries but they started cutting back soon after. That being said, plastic is a problem in itself, not a "carbon" concern as it is being discussed in COP28 so it is off-topic. Regarding the "externalize manufacture"/"carbon hit", again, this is a little outdated. It was very true from 2005-2010, but since then China has developed rapidly and is now importing almost as much carbon as it is exporting. See graphs below for "consumption-based CO2 emissions vs. territorial emissions". Except for the EU, it is a matter of ~10% difference. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/production-vs-consumption-co2-emissions?country=European+Union+%2828%29~CHN~USA~ARE https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/production-vs-consumption...
    - jkic47 3y ago
      great graphic. if you zoom out over all time, the curves seem fairly similar
- mrpopo 3y ago
  > Countries that are still building out their infrastructure should be expected to expend more CO2 per capita to catch up. (Modern equipment is more effecient, but still). Well, the UAE is not exactly a "country that is still building", so your comment is very misleading. Nevertheless, we can also compare the "share of global cumulative CO₂ emissions" for UAE and USA. It's 0.3% and 24% respectively, and when prorated to the population, we get (0.3 / 10) / (24 / 330) = 0.4, so the UAE is cumulatively about 40% of the USA already, even though their development only started 50 years ago. And again, if you consider that out of the 10 millions living in the UAE, about 9 million are migrant workers, the vast majority living in dorms, the equation is clear and the UAE current lifestyle is totally unsustainable. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-cumulative-co2?time=latest&country=ARE~USA https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-cumulative-co2?t...

by mrpopo 3y ago

fakedang 3y ago

> Plus the UAE is ~10% citizens, 90% migrant foreigners. I'm not sure how per capita footprint of the UAE accounts for that (is a UAE citizen carbon footprint actually 250t CO2...?) It's close. Electricity is practically free for citizens, which is why their large homes are key peretualy cool and thoroughly well-lit, like what you'd see in a real estate marketing brochure.

coffeebeqn 3y ago
Somehow I doubt the migrant workers live in excessively AC’d mansions
- WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
  > Somehow I doubt the migrant workers live in excessively AC’d mansions Your suspicions might be true: https://duckduckgo.com/?hps=1&q=%22united+arab+emirates%22+migrant+workers+housing+conditions&iax=images&ia=images https://duckduckgo.com/?hps=1&q=%22united+arab+emirates%22+m...
- fakedang 3y ago
  CITIZENS Migrants aren't citizens, last I checked.

uluyol 3y ago

These stats can be misleading for other reasons as well. The US and EU have a lot of existing infrastructure, construction of which required enormous amounts of CO2 emissions. Countries that are still building out their infrastructure should be expected to expend more CO2 per capita to catch up. (Modern equipment is more effecient, but still).

coffeebeqn 3y ago
And they ship/externwlize much of their costs to other places. Just a few examples with China - US and EU send their plastic there for “recycling” and probably the majority of goods we use are manufactured in China so they can take the “carbon hit”
- mrpopo 3y ago
  China doesn't take the world's plastic anymore, that comment is now 4 years outdated. Since then, some of it was shipped to south-east Asian countries but they started cutting back soon after. That being said, plastic is a problem in itself, not a "carbon" concern as it is being discussed in COP28 so it is off-topic. Regarding the "externalize manufacture"/"carbon hit", again, this is a little outdated. It was very true from 2005-2010, but since then China has developed rapidly and is now importing almost as much carbon as it is exporting. See graphs below for "consumption-based CO2 emissions vs. territorial emissions". Except for the EU, it is a matter of ~10% difference. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/production-vs-consumption-co2-emissions?country=European+Union+%2828%29~CHN~USA~ARE https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/production-vs-consumption...
  - jkic47 3y ago
    great graphic. if you zoom out over all time, the curves seem fairly similar
mrpopo 3y ago
> Countries that are still building out their infrastructure should be expected to expend more CO2 per capita to catch up. (Modern equipment is more effecient, but still). Well, the UAE is not exactly a "country that is still building", so your comment is very misleading. Nevertheless, we can also compare the "share of global cumulative CO₂ emissions" for UAE and USA. It's 0.3% and 24% respectively, and when prorated to the population, we get (0.3 / 10) / (24 / 330) = 0.4, so the UAE is cumulatively about 40% of the USA already, even though their development only started 50 years ago. And again, if you consider that out of the 10 millions living in the UAE, about 9 million are migrant workers, the vast majority living in dorms, the equation is clear and the UAE current lifestyle is totally unsustainable. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-cumulative-co2?time=latest&country=ARE~USA https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-cumulative-co2?t...