I wonder why Greenpeace never protests in Qatar?

You know… the thing about that study being historical estimates makes me think. Lets go through this a step at a time.
The study appears to be trying to caclulate how much CO2 in total has been released from each country over the years, then dividing that by the population.
Sure, I may be wrong about that, but that irks me… something doesn’t sound right about it. So I decided to have a look for some other numbers… like these ones:
“World Per Capita Carbon Dioxide Emissions from the Consumption and Flaring of Fossil Fuels, 1980-2006”
http://74.125.153.132/search?q=cache:QhUl0a_6bpQJ:www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/tableh1cco2.xls
Note that the source is the US DOE…
So what do THOSE numbers say (for 2006)?
United States – 19.78
Qatar – 61.19
Hmm wierd. Differnt numbers, still seemingly supporting Mr Watt’s contention, but different.
What ARE these numbers, anyway?
“Data in this table are calculated by dividing the data on total carbon dioxide emissions from the consumption and flaring of fossil fuels in million metric tons of carbon dioxide units for each country and year from Table H.1co2 by the population in millions for each country and year from Table B.1”
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/iea/Notes%20for%20Table%20H_1cco2.html
Ah so we need to see those numbers too. Here is Table H.1co2 (2006 numbers):
United States – 5,902.75
Qatar – 54.17
http://74.125.153.132/search?q=cache:VCcNf5p2cbQJ:www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/tableh1co2.xls
And Table B.1 (2006 numbers):
United States – 298.44
Qatar – 0.89
http://74.125.153.132/search?q=cache:NF4GeeyiTcQJ:www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/tableb1.xls
So now it all makes sense. Qatar is a tiny country with a population of only 890 thousand – but it produces a huge amount of export petroleum and natural gas. So when you divide their fairly small amount of CO2 they produce making that export fuel by their tiny population, you get a much larger number than when you divide the US’ HUGE amount of CO2 by their much larger population!
Take note, the US produces over a HUNDRED TIMES as much CO2 per year as Qatar – its just that the US has more than a hundred times as many people!
Basically what you are talking about is a country that exports as much fossil fuels as Califronia produces… but with a population less than that of Delaware.
OF COURSE the numbers are going to make Qatar look terrible!

Tiny, tiny Luxembourg figures quite prominently, that’s interesting… an interesting way, that is, to show what a load of BS the per-capita metric is.
Luxembourg has 400.000-ish inhabitants, who, it seems, use gigantic quantities of hydrocarbons. They don’t. They SELL gigantic quantities of hydrocarbons because they are a lot cheaper than in neighboring Germany, France or Belgium. In fact, about 60% of all hydrocarbons sold in Luxembourg go to these countries, mostly in the form of gasoline and diesel. Take these out of the per-capita calculation and the real number looks a lot better.
Incidentally, this is also why the average Luxembourger seems to statistically consume epic quantities of coffee, alcohol and tobacco, which just so happen to also be on sale at gas stations… Honi soit qui mal y pense.
This, of course, puts the local government in a bit of a bind. On the one hand, they wouldn’t want to be the CO2 pigs that the statistics imply. On the other hand, the hydrocarbon sales across the border (remember, this is purely retail, no wholesale involved) flush a handsome amount of assorted taxes into the state coffers (620 million euros in 2005). So even among the green party there is much wringing of hands when statistics such as this one are rubbed under their noses. What to do, what to do… 🙂

In adition to Tons CO2 versus GDP, it should be noted that one should take GDP corrected for purchasing power. This to compensate for e.g. dollar-euro and other fluctuations. I don’t know whether this was done here. It should reduce US levels a lot in relative means compared to euro countries.
The US will still not do too well there. America isn’t so efficient as Americas like to believe. Sorry guys, I love your country, but as an immigrant from Europe to the US, I see there is lots of improvement possible. However, as energy will become more expensive that will go by itself. No government needed IMHO, so don’t take it as an insult 😉
But even with that the US will probably use more CO2 per capita than some other countries. But that is also because US has many coal. Some countries are lucky to have much hydro, others not. And again others use nuclear. Without starting a good-bad-nuclear debate, but I thing if the US would massively shift to that the greens would object too. 😉 France does relatively well because of manu nuclear plans build in the past. However their current ‘progress’ isn’t too great. And of course it is easy to tell a country, you can not use your natural resources. Holland uses its gas, Norway its oil and the US and China its coal.
Also GDP doesn’t scale. The first 100 dollars GDP is not the same as the last and not the same as the middle. People will first buy a fridge, then later an AC but the latter will use more energy than the first. Most Europeans even in the western countries there don’t have an A/C in their house. If they start adding them, this will add to GDP but also to CO2 and probably not in a lineair way.
I believe Pielke once posted numbers on CO2 progress in terms of change per GDP change. The US was doing on par there with other western countries.

Well that lead balloon cartoon is a fraud; because it doesn’t include any “carbon removal per capita” information.
And if it did, then the USA would come out as the only good kid on the block, since we are the worlds only sizeable land mass that is a net carbon SINK.
With all our forests and agriculture we remove more than our industrial activities emit.
And out Aussie Mates deserve special dispensation, since nothing green grows in Australia, so they have no compensation for their industrial emissions of life giving CO2. Australia has a second handicap, in that water is completely unknown in Australia, but Coal is plentiful, so their electric power generation is heavily coal based; they even have a Newcastle in Australia in honor of their coal stocks.
Considering their total land area; Australia is NOT a significant emitter of CO2, although they are a net emitter.
And if you factor in the goods and services produced for net carbon emissions, or even for total energy consumption; then that begs the question; why doesn’t the USA consume even more of the world’s energy; since we use it so effectively.
But that is all academic anyway; since CO2 is not the big bad bogey man it is made out to be.
New Zealand is also carbon negative I believe also because of its efficient agriculture, and forestry; but then being only the size of Oregon; it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans in terms of carbon.
And I’m doing my fair share for the carbon cycle, by planting acorns while the squirrels aren’t watching me; and for $5 per acorn, I’ll take care of any of my co-workers who drives an SUV to work.