Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
2009
India
2002
China
Japan
UK
Germany
New Z.
Australia
Canada
USA
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
Tonnes of carbon per person
Fig. 7.1
Carbonemissionsperpersonfromenergyproductioninselectedcountriesin2002(shadedbars)and2009
(whitebars).Datafor2002fromtheWorldwatchInstitute(2003),whichinturnobtaineditfromthe
InternationalEnergyAgency(IEA);2009datafromtheIEA,2011(www.iea.org);bothdatasetswere
convertedfromtonnesofcarbondioxidetotonnesofcarbon.(SeealsoAppendix3.)
post-industrial developed areas such as from Europe, North America and Australasia
have decreasing per-capita emissions between 2002 and 2009, whereas India and
China have growing emissions.
Affluence does not vary just between national populations but within them, and it
varies over time. Overall, citizens of the Earth are getting wealthier (see Figure 7.2),
although some remain more wealthy than others and for a minority wealth is
decreasing. The differences in wealth across the planet do have a bearing on environ-
mental impact but as this relates to international development it is a subject too great
to discuss here, other than as a brief reference. Nonetheless, broadly speaking there
is some correlation between financial wealth and carbon emissions. For example, as
noted, the USA is the biggest economy on the planet and also, with less than 5%
of the global population, generates nearly a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions,
so making it the largest fossil fuel emitter on both a per-capita and a national basis.
Whether such correlation will continue remains to be seen. This is because the per-
capita carbon emissions of a number of less-developed nations are also increasing,
even if they are currently low. Here the concern is that the populations of countries
like India and China are large, so that if their per-capita emissions continue to rise
then on a national basis this will have a major impact in the way global trends in
atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations change.
Notwithstanding all this, according to our current global society's accounting
system (there are others) we are getting wealthier and, for the moment at least, our
global greenhouse gas emissions are similarly increasing. This overall increase in
Search WWH ::
Custom Search