this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2026
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It is relevant when it comes to human productivity, like the computers we are using to communicate, the food we eat and the water we drink. Carbon intensity is effectively an attempt to measure efficiency. Like how efficiently do you produce food and water?
It's not the most important measure of anything. We're all conditioned to think of it as way more significant than it is.
You were the one who originally mentioned the CO2 emissions per capita, here are the leaders and losers:
These countries barely produce anything compared to USA/China/Russia, it doesn't mean much.
It means quite a lot. There are better measures of economic development than GDP, but no developed country doesn't emit far too much greenhouse gas. Being slightly less stinky than your peers in that crowd is not much to boast about.
I need that better measure of economic development than GDP then, please point me to it and I'll use it in the analysis. I know about the HDI, maybe I should use that instead?
I'm not an expert and it's complicated. If you're not averse to youtube video essays I enjoyed this recent one from Unlearning Economics which talks about one way to think about what's going on and incidentally highlights some other metrics that can be informative. Thinking about that was the reason it was on my mind.
HDI is pretty respectable as far as I know but I'm not sure what you're aiming to use it for.
Basically, how much does the country produce per unit of carbon dioxide emitted.
How much human development it produces? Personally I wouldn't expect any relationship between the two to be easy to interpret. Although there's bound to be some rough correlation, it may in large part be a historical accident reflecting the patterns of technology adoption over the past century or three which wouldn't necessarily say much about the choices facing us today. But maybe you'll find something interesting โ good luck!