All the speechifying at the COP26 climate change conference has brought home the importance of carbon missions per capita as a measure. For example, China says it does not need to do as much as other developed countries because it is at a "special development phase", and because anyway its emissions per capita as much lower than that of many other developed countries. The first of these arguments is hogwash (as I have noted in another post), but the second point is actually salient.
According to Worldometer (and I've no reason to disbelieve it), the top 10 emitters are, in order: China, USA, India, Russia, Japan, Germany, Canada, Iran, South Korea and Indonesia. The top ten emitters per capita, however, are: Qatar, Montenegro, Kuwait, Trinidad & Tobago, UAE, Oman, Canada, Brunei, Luxembourg and Bahrain. The common element? The only country in the top ten of emitters and emitters per capita is ... Canada (at No. 7 on both lists). The only other G20 countries that even come close are Australia (No. 14 and No. 11 respectively on the two lists), and Saudi Arabia (No. 11 and No. 15), and maybe the USA, incidentally appears at No. 2 and No. 16.
So, are we really in a position to be lecturing the rest of the world? Granted we live in a cold country that also gets very hot in the summer, but still...
And what about carbon emissions per unit. Of GDP, you ask? Well, Canada's up there too, according to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, Canada appears in 11th place again, after a bunch of Eastern European countries and Russia, with the USA some five places below. Not good.
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