As global leaders meet at COP16, Cali, Columbia and Baku, the capital of oil and gas-rich Azerbaijan, for COP29 next month, a new map has for the first time illustrated which countries fall above or below the median for emissions.
Published by the Visual Capitalist, the map visualizes the countries above (red) or below (blue) the global average for per-capita consumption-based emissions, which is 4.7 tCOâ‚‚. Data is sourced from the Global Carbon Budget and accessed via Our World in Data as of 2021.
“The idea behind this map is to compare how the variance in consumption patterns can change how much each country’s average lifestyle affects the environment,” according to the team at Visual Capitalist, which said the map highlights the disparity between the Global North (namely North America, Europe, Oceania) and Global South (South America, Africa, Asia) – a major divide in the negotiations around forest plantations in a potential UN-controlled International Carbon Market.
“When doing a standard ranking, there are multiple outliers in the general Global North/South divide,” they said. For example, the top five countries with the highest consumption-based per capita emissions are all from Asia:
As it happens, four of the five are small, rich, oil producers.
“However, patterns do persist. For example, Ukraine, Romania and Albania are the only European countries below the average. On the other hand, Chile and South Africa are the only South American and African countries above the average.”
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