Maybe it has changed in the last few years, but it is a lot different than your claim of 5 times the US amount or 11 times the Chinese. Where did you get your numbers from?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dio...
Maybe it has changed in the last few years, but it is a lot different than your claim of 5 times the US amount or 11 times the Chinese. Where did you get your numbers from?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dio...
Just like I mentioned to @ryanwaggoner, I think, given incidents like 'climategate' we should be careful of quoting sources like wikipedia.
For instance, the source data used for the wikipedia article is not carbon emissions per capita, it is data on carbon emissions per capita . . . PER USD1 GDP. That is, per capita per $1 GDP.
The authors of the wikipedia article either mistook the data to be data on per capita emissions, or really didn't understand the difference. At any rate, that is the reason for the confusion I think.
By the way, here is the source data that the wikipedia article uses:
http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/Metadata.aspx?IndicatorId=28&...
as @nkurz suggests, then you will come to a page with two 'per capita' data charts on it. Click either, and under the 'Series Detail' section of the resultant page you will see something like the following:
Series Name: Carbon dioxide emissions (CO2), metric tons of CO2 per capita (UNFCCC)
Goal: Goal 7. Ensure environmental sustainability
Target: Target 7.A: Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes and reverse the loss of environmental resources
----HERE---->> Indicator: Indicator 7.2 Carbon dioxide emissions, total, per capita and per $1 GDP (PPP) <<<----HERE----
As you can see it is per capita per $1 GDP (PPP). By the way, the (PPP), Purchasing Power Parity, makes this data even less useful. But I didn't want to get into ALL of the things that are wrong with this dataset.
Alternatively, here is a direct link to:
Carbon dioxide emissions (CO2), metric tons of CO2 per capita (UNFCCC)
http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/SeriesDetail.aspx?srid=752
Again, check under 'Series Detail' and you will see the above dataset description.
They appear to be listing the various data elements compiled. As in:
* Total carbon dioxide emissions * Per Capita carbon dioxide emissions * per $1 GDP carbon dioxide emissions
I guessed that this might be the case, but did not pre-conclude it. Instead I downloaded all of their actual data sets and compared the numbers in the charts, and indeed, the numbers for per-capita carbon dioxide emissions, which include no mention of per-GDP calculations, support Wikipedia's numbers to the same effect.
i.e., Australia in 2006 was showing 19 metric tons of CO2 emissions per capita to the United States' 19.7, etc.
(And I swore I was never again going to get involved in a climate "discussion" on HN.)
My point being that the material point stands in either case. That is, even if we were to all agree to your interpretation of the data, nations like China are still not the problem. Why then, is all of the negative attention on China and the US? Clearly there are other emitters just as profligate. In fact, in the case of China, most of the other nations are far more profligate per capita.
I maintain that the negative attention given to China and the US is due to the fact that being anti US and anti China is the height of political fashion. Clearly, the people denigrating China don't take Australia to task for what we have both established as demonstrably far more egregious behavior.
Come on now, you're having a hard enough time reading the legend, there isn't much interpretation going on.
1) Unlike China, Australia was a signatory to Kyoto (actually, I'm not 100% sure if China was a signatory or not, but at any rate they didn't have binding targets).
2) Unlike the US, Australia actually met its Kyoto targets.
3) Everyone knows that most of Australia's economic activity is geared towards exports of primary produce to the rest of the world - as already noted, Australia's own population is small, certainly not big enough to consume even a tenth of what is being produced. As such, at Kyoto it was agreed to not heavily limit Australian emissions, as these emissions would more fairly be placed on the books of the consumer countries.
4) Australia was willing and able to play ball in Copenhagen, unlike the Chinese.
5) Australia does not have very much diplomatic clout, so it is not being held accountable for the failure of diplomacy, as the US is.
6) And, finally, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what Australia does per capita, as its population is simply too small to make a difference on a global scale - even if we accept the dodgy figure of Australia emitting 11 times more per capita than the Chinese, that still means that China is emmitting more than 5 times more than Australia. Using more realistic figures, China is emitting about 10 times more than Australia, and the US is emitting nearly 20 times more. And that is why no-one is pointing the finger at Australia.
http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/Metadata.aspx?IndicatorId=28&...
Follow either of the links to 'Metric tons of CO2 per capita' and you'll find numbers very close to Wikipedia.
(in any case, could you delete one of your responses so that replies aren't scattered?)
http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/SeriesDetail.aspx?srid=752
Series Name: Carbon dioxide emissions (CO2), metric tons of CO2 per capita (UNFCCC)
Goal: Goal 7. Ensure environmental sustainability
Target: Target 7.A: Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes and reverse the loss of environmental resources
----HERE---->> Indicator: Indicator 7.2 Carbon dioxide emissions, total, per capita and per $1 GDP (PPP) <<<----HERE----
EDIT: I apologize, I mistook the meaning of your response. END EDIT
This is a case of an "Oxford comma". The data would be more correctly described as "...emissions, total, per capita, and per $1 GDP". Including or not including the comma is a style choice; journalists tend not to include it, and often don't realize that it can change the meaning of a sentence.
If you examine the data sets themselves, rather than only the one sentence, I think you'll see.
So if we assume that your interpretation of the data is correct, Australia is just as big an emitter as the US, and they emit roughly 4 TIMES as much as China does. If my interpretation was correct, they emit 5 TIMES the US and 11 TIMES China.
My point being that the material point stands in either case. That is, even if we were to all agree to your interpretation, China is still not the problem. Why then, is all of the attention on China and the US? Clearly there are other emitters just as profligate. In fact, in the case of China, most of the other nations are far larger emitters per capita.
I maintain that the negative attention given to China and the US is due to the fact that being anti US and anti China is the height of political fashion. Clearly, the people denigrating China don't take Australia to task for what we have both established as demonstrably far more egregious behavior.
I'd agree that political fashion likely plays a strong role, but your reluctance to retract your misinterpretation regarding the units of the data makes my unwilling to discuss this with you further. Claiming the the point stands in either case, whether or not this is true, forces me to flip the bozo bit.
Which is good, actually; I'm getting more done, and HN isn't having to suffer my negative influence. ;-)
We're bad, but we're not THAT bad ...
# 1 United States: 5,762,050 # 2 China: 3,473,600 # 3 Russia: 1,540,360
take a look at this :) http://cait.wri.org/figures/USToIntlGHGMap-Regions-thumb.gif
The numbers matter.