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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 o

by 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  China doesn't take the world's plastic anymore, that comment is now 4 years outdated.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 Regarding the "externalize manufacture"/"carbon hit", again, this is a little outdated.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 uluyol 3y ago

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...