Wealth and Responsibility

There is a strong dependence of CO2 emissions on wealth. With a doubling of per-capita expenditure, the CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning and industrial processes increase by 81%

The emissions of other greenhouse gases, primarily methane and nitrous oxides, increases less strongly with wealth, because they are mostly associated with food production. We see that for poor countries, food is the most important consumption category, while for rich countries, mobility, shelter, and the consumption of manufactured goods become more important.

Figure caption: Regression of carbon footprint of different consumption categories as a function of expenditure level, using linear-log coordinates.

This is the scale that really matters: All GHG emissions matter the same, hence the ordinate is in linear coordinates. Economic growth is measured in percent, hence the log-transformed expenditure scale on the abscissa corresponds to a linear time scale. At an annual growth rate of 4.7%, it takes 50 years to go from $100 to $1000, another 50 years to go to $10’000 etc.

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