Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
twenty-
ve nations who were the largest emitters, and
became the
first Protocol in United Nations history to
be agreed to unanimously in
when the last member
of the UN who had not yet signed on, did so.
There is a strong correlation between GDP and total
emissions. The world average is an emission of about one-
half tonne of CO
per
of GDP. The United States
is about at the average, China is above it, the EU is below,
but the range of values is small. But, there is a wide spread
in per capita income and this will be the source of the big
problem confronting the designers on Kyoto-
$
. (Emis-
sion per capita is mainly a re
ection of per capita income.)
The Annex B list of countries in Kyoto-
committed to
action excluded the developing countries from any
requirement to reduce or even to slow the rate of increase
of emissions. In the negotiation over Kyoto-
the claim
will be made that the developing countries are too poor
and should be allowed to keep on building their econ-
omies while others take care of global warming problems.
I hope I have convinced the reader that no stabilization
scheme can succeed without including them.
Emissions, population, GDP per capita, and emissions
per capita show the wide variation in per capita income
and emissions among the world
'
s top
fifteen emitters of
greenhouse gases according to
data. The challenge
to governments (and to the reader if you want to play too)
is to devise an acceptable scheme to balance the state of
development of various countries with what they will
commit to do about emissions, and to devise a threshold
test to determine when an initially poor country has
grown to the point where it should commit to controlling
its emissions. Here is the quiz:
