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It's a clever accounting trick. Try it with a random selection of countries instead of a cherry-picked sample. We have seen no decrease in global emissions. Ad

It's a clever accounting trick. Try it with a random selection of countries instead of a cherry-picked sample. We have seen no decrease in global emissions. Advanced economies rely on international trade for their emissions-heavy industries, effectively outsourcing emissions. Carbon molecules don't respect international boundaries and the atmosphere doesn't care what country burned it. From a climate perspective, global CO2e in tons is what matters, everything else is accounting tricks. You can build a more complex model to deal with the carbon accounting intricacies of trade. Or you can analyze on a global scale. But analyzing national data without proper controls is straight up invalid scientific inference.

Arnt 3y ago
Clever accounting trick? AFAIK noone has strict enough rules to make people bother with clever accounting tricks. I think it's more likely to mean that ① advanced economies have advanced further in the transition, ② advanced economies are also economies with few children and global per-capita emissions peaked about a decade ago, or ③ both.
- perrygeo 3y ago
  In case there is a language barrier or something going on... by "clever accounting trick" I meant that the analyst in question committed a well-known scientific fallacy. Yet the author published it anyway because it proved favorable to their thesis. Whereas publishing the scientifically-valid statement would have undermined it. You're right though, let's not call it a clever accounting trick. That's confusing. Let's call it what it is - journalistic misconduct and scientific fraud.
  - Arnt 3y ago
    You really want someone to be Bad and Guilty and Nefarious, don't you?
    - perrygeo 3y ago
      No. I want people to do good science and to stop doing bad science. Especially when it comes to climate change, we have a moral obligation to root out bad ideas and invalid methods. I'm happy to have a conversation about the invalidity of the national GDP:emissions ratio method. That's the topic of this thread.

Arnt 3y ago

Clever accounting trick? AFAIK noone has strict enough rules to make people bother with clever accounting tricks. I think it's more likely to mean that ① advanced economies have advanced further in the transition, ② advanced economies are also economies with few children and global per-capita emissions peaked about a decade ago, or ③ both.

perrygeo 3y ago
In case there is a language barrier or something going on... by "clever accounting trick" I meant that the analyst in question committed a well-known scientific fallacy. Yet the author published it anyway because it proved favorable to their thesis. Whereas publishing the scientifically-valid statement would have undermined it. You're right though, let's not call it a clever accounting trick. That's confusing. Let's call it what it is - journalistic misconduct and scientific fraud.
- Arnt 3y ago
  You really want someone to be Bad and Guilty and Nefarious, don't you?
  - perrygeo 3y ago
    No. I want people to do good science and to stop doing bad science. Especially when it comes to climate change, we have a moral obligation to root out bad ideas and invalid methods. I'm happy to have a conversation about the invalidity of the national GDP:emissions ratio method. That's the topic of this thread.