This list seem to be based on production based accounting if emissions. Consumption-based per-capita emissions are available here for those curious: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-co2-per-capit...
The tension globally is between the west who has high per capita emissions, a long period of high emissions, and high living standards as compared to the global south who have a larger population and lower living standards and yet still high absolute levels of emissions.
Telling China/india/et al that they’re the real problem is taken as “yeah we polluted for centuries to get rich but that’s all in the past, you need to stay poor in order to save the planet”.
An alternative solution might be to have the west pay to help these countries develop more sustainably, but that’s met with anger by the rising nationalist elements. I mean even importing green tech from the global leader (China) is being resisted.
As for which metric to use, that depends on the argument you want to make. One can look at cumulative emissions and see how western nations have polluted much more historically, and should therefore do much more to clean up a mess their have contributed much more to.
Their governments will retort: "Oh but we produce so little of current global emissions now, those other countries polluting more should change first".
Each polluter is an individual person making individual decisions.
The thing people are dancing around is any concept of "rationing", because that's political suicide, but at the same time asking people who've only just got clean water and walk to work to reduce emissions while other people are taking multiple transatlantic flights per week looks a bit questionable.
I don’t know who those people are. Also, another way to say rationing is “sharing”.
The per-capita measurement allows you to directly and meaningfully compare any subdivision, while per-country isn't even meaningfully comparable with other per-country measurements.
Compare to what end? The environment cares about total output, not per capita output.
> while per-country isn't even meaningfully comparable with other per-country measurements.
Why does it need to be?
Yes, and the environment does not care in any way about countries or other silly subdivisions. So we approach the problem as each of us humans having some carbon budget based on the limits of our environment. You can argue how exactly these budgets are distributed, but it's the only measure that matters. Because again: you're arbitrarily choosing to look at countries, when even other subdivisions along the same axis would make more sense. So why focus on countries specifically?
> Why does it need to be?
Because obviously a measurement that's comparable is more useful than one that isn't. It allows us to make determinations about what changes bring us closer to the goal of environmental sustainability, and which changes bring us further away. Do I really need to go on further?
Because it is at the country level that people corporate on international problems. And in many countries it is the federal (or equivalent level) which has the money required to build out the kind of projects needed change those numbers (or the legal authority to mandate it).
Ahh. I misunderstood what you meant. > while per-country isn't even meaningfully comparable with other per-country measurements.
I interpreted as “other per-country measurements” as (other measurements) not (same metric, different country).
I still think it’s not relevant. The changes and the target are still the same, i.e. stop burning shit.
It's also at the union level that people corporate on international problems, arguably more so than on the country level. Yet the largest differences occur at the regional level. Both would be more comparable, and would capture arguably more useful information. I just don't see how an arbitrary and incomparable measurement is better than one without those flaws.
> I still think it’s not relevant. The changes and the target are still the same, i.e. stop burning shit.
Yes, but it's easier to implement the necessary changes if everyone tries. It will be much harder to get the necessary investment from all voting populations if large discrepancies exist between groups of people.
You seem to be talking about the groupings by unions and regions. I am unconvinced that people have a stronger affiliation for those than their country. Further, measuring emissions levels for the country as a whole. On a practical level, getting emission levels for a specific region or a specific union, must less particular individuals, is going to be much harder.
Why is the affiliation the relevant axis? Why not indirect political power (unions strongest) or direct political power (regions strongest)? You're arbitrarily choosing an arbitrary measurement.
> Further, measuring emissions levels for the country as a whole. On a practical level, getting emission levels for a specific region or a specific union, must less particular individuals, is going to be much harder.
I don't see how it could be more complex for unions since they are made up of countries. If we have measurements for countries, we have measurements for unions.
Similarly, you can't create country-wide measurements without measuring individual regions. At least in Germany we have pretty good coverage for the individual regions, which gives you much higher resolution data. So why not use that?
I don't see how you can arrive at "countries" as the best/most logical axis of measurement. The only use I see is if you want to tell people that other countries have much further to go (but I'm not accusing you of doing so).