For all the flak China receives about its greenhouse gas emissions, the average Chinese produces less than a third the amount of CO2 than his American counterpart. It just so happens that there are 1.3 billion Chinese, and 0.3 billion Americans, so China ends up producing more CO2.
Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, such as methane and carbon monoxide, are produced from burning petrol, growing rice, and raising cattle . These greenhouse gases let in sun rays, but do not let out the heat that the rays generate on earth. This results in a greenhouse effect, where global temperatures are purported to be rising as a result of human activities.
The below map shows the per-capita emissions of greenhouse gases:
As you can see, the least damage is done by people in Africa, South Asia, and Latin America. But these places also happen to be the poorest places: Because they don’t have much industry, they don’t churn out much CO2.
The below plot shows the correlation between poverty and green-ness. As you can see, each dollar of a rich person is attached to a smaller carbon cost than the dollar of a poor person. This is partially because rich people get most of their manufacturing done by poor people, but also because rich people are more environmentally conscious.
Lastly, here is a map of CO2 emissions per dollar of GDP, which shows how green different economies are:
CO2 emissions per Dollar of output are lowest in:
- EU and Japan: highly regulated and environmentally conscious
- sub-Saharan Africa: subsistence-based economies
…and highest in the industrializing economies of Asia.
Kudos to Brazilian output for being so green, despite the country’s middle-income status. Were these statistics to factor in the CO2 absorption from rainforests, Brazil and other equatorial countries would appear even greener.
Data from the Word Bank. Graphics produced on R.
CoolStatsBlog 
Well written article. Interesting to learn about Carbon Dioxide emissions from a new perspective, something that the Western media has quite not reported about. The article, though not great in length, has done a good job in not just covering the emission issue on the surface but going into depth and identifying the connection between emission and income. I also like the fact how even though your blog is dedicated to statistics, articles tend to be not purely theoretical statistics based and how they cover current affairs, especially from a different perspective. Keep the good work going!
I try to make the content as accessible as possible, so i keep the posts short and jargonless. Thanks for appreciating that Khuddoos!
Reblogged this on acckkii.
Reblogged this on CoolStatsBlog.
The problem with this theory at the moment is that no direct correlation has been established between increasing C02 levels and higher temperatures. Over the last 15 years the Earth’s temperature have remained relatively unchanged. Furthermore the Earth’s temperature is well within the standard deviation over the last century. The computer models have been consistently wrong projecting future climate trends.
A lot of time and resources are being dedicated towards CO2, but I’m more concerned about chemical pollution and access to clean water. At the present time those two issues are bigger concern than CO2 levels.
Hence my use of the word “purported”
Good article. I wish that more would understand that it is NOT individuals that make the choices on being high emitters or not.
It is now 2016, and America has cut some 200 gw of coal plants, while China has added that amount. America is down to around 450 GW of coal and dropping, with China at 1.2 TW of coal and adding 50 GW of new coal plants EACH year until 2030.
Why are they adding more in China? Because the gov decrees it.
Can I see where those maps came from? How can I find it in World Bank? And when it is dated from?
I made the maps using World Bank data, dated from the time of the post