Rising Global Emissions
Looking to the trends for a glimpse into the future
"Emissions from a number of growing economies have been increasing rapidly over the last few decades. Fast-forwarding to annual emissions in 2014, we can see that a number of low to middle income nations are now within the top global emitters. In fact, China is now the largest emitter, followed by (in order) the US, EU-28, India, Russia, Indonesia, Brazil, Japan, Canada and Mexico. Note that a number of nations that are already top emitters are likely to continue to increase emissions as they undergo development."
"In contrast to CO2 emissions growth in low to middle income economies, trends across many high income nations have stabilized, and in several cases decreased in recent decades. Despite this downward trend across some nations, emissions growth in transitioning economies dominates the global trend—as such, global annual emissions have continued to increase over this period."
The world will continue to industrialize, and economies will continue to transition and grow. It is likely that many nations will look to model their standard of living on countries with significantly higher per capita CO2 emission rates. The data above demonstrates the reality that much of the world's per capita carbon emission is still low and is set to rise. When more than 4 billion people (and this number is set to grow due to a rapidly rising population) become more financially capable, they will begin to consume, and it is a mystery whether or not the earth and the climate as we know it can survive the strain.
With this in mind, it is important to gain an understanding of what contributes most to our carbon footprints so that we've got a chance at curbing its influence.
CO2 Emission Share
