Cumulative CO2 emissions per population in 2021

13 comments
  1. Being fair, the issue is today. A KG of CO2 emitted in 1850 is much less problematic than a KG emitted today, because most of the 1850 emission will have dissolved away by now

  2. I seriously doubt that Earth atmosphere is concerned about “per capita” pollution, rather absolute amounts emitted. If Australia reduces its emissions by 50% no one would even notice because on the planetary scale it is a rounding number. Not so with China.

  3. I really do not want to say Finland shouldn’t do whatever possible to reduce co2 output, but thinking about the scale is a bit funny.

    See, the [annual CO2 output of Finland](https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/finland) is about 40 million tonnes per year.

    On the other hand we know that a person breathing produces about 500g of CO2 per day, but lets round that to 150kg/year/pers. If there is about billion people in India their breathing alone thus produces about 150 million tonnes of CO2 yearly.

    Edit: source https://www.globe.gov/explore-science/scientists-blog/archived-posts/sciblog/index.html_p=183.html

    Edit: cumulative CO2 of Finland is about 3 billion tonnes, so breathing Indians will go past Finland in roughly 30 years. Please feel free to correct me if I went wrong somewhere.

  4. For fuck’s sake. Climate change isn’t happening for the emissions made 100 years ago, there is a thing called carbon cycle

    https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/CarbonCycle/page1.php

    The issue is that we put more and more each year faster than the decay rate.

    The main carbon sink right now are the oceans, thing that is increasing ocean acidity. But carbon is heavy and the old carbon most of those countries used is long deposited in Ocean soils.

  5. Just think.

    China emits 2 times more than the USA

    China has atleast 4 timed more people the USA

    Per capita matters more

  6. Maybe this is a dumb question, but wouldn’t carbon emissions from 1850 already be partially neutralised? Or does the graph “amortise” these historical emissions?

  7. If you are hellbent on ensuring that climate change is not stopped, then sure, bring in emissions from the 19th century as an excuse for why India can destroy the climate now. I didn’t include China in that since they actually are trying to tackle climate change.

    Even doing things per capita is dangerous, since the capita is the whole problem. Without overpopulation there would be no climate change. Rewarding overpopulation with smaller per capita emissions in graphs is again the path do doing nothing that needs doing.

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