Professor Hertwich, (left) head of NTNU's popular and internationally recognised Industrial Ecology Programme in the Department of Energy and Process Engineering, co-authored the paper "Carbon Footprint of Nations: A Global, Trade-Linked Analysis" with Peters, (right) from the Centre for International Climate and Environment Research (CICERO) in Oslo.

The paper describes "Carbon Footprint of Nations," the website created by Hertwich and Peters, where users can check the importance of different consumption categories for their nations, particularly for imports and exports. It details the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the final consumption of goods from 73 nations and 14 world regions.

Global picture lack information
The site describes how emissions vary with consumption, and responsible consumption categories.

The picture that emerges is the clear relationship between emissions and overall consumer spending, and that greenhouse gas emissions rise about 70% with each doubling of consumer spending.

Increased consumption increases the share of emissions from transport and consumer goods, decreasing the proportion of emissions that can be attributed to food.

The study also shows that the emissions related to production of goods that we import are important. “This illustrates the danger of shifting emissions related to our own consumption from in-country to the developing world,” Hertwich notes.

But the world carbon footprint map is interesting, as despite the detail of the UK country calculations, the world map seems to indicate no information for the UK region, the US is well and truly painted red and the growing Chinese economy is still wonderfully green. Perhaps some attention to pixel paint densities is needed.