Manipulated Statistics: Is Australia really a big emitter of CO2?
This question is one that is often confusing and gets mixed responses from politicians of both sides.
Advocates of Climate Change and/or the Government's Carbon Tax often quote the Garnaut Review (2011) as stating:
Australia, Canada and the United States have the highest emissions per person of the developed world.
This allows them to claim: We need a Carbon Tax now - We can't afford to be left behind?
Should we really be measuring Carbon Emissions per capita (per person)? This is a key question against the validity of their argument / statistics and unfortunately is never asked, nor answered.
I disagree. I don't think that we should make conclusions such as "Australia is one of the largest emitters" as this statement does not require taking into consideration the population of any particular country. The only way per capita statistics should be used is when determining the efficiency of a country's carbon emissions ie. how much they use to satisfy the population's demands.
So is Australia really a big emitter of CO2?
Let's now take into consideration the Populations of the various different countries.
- Australia: 22,600,000 (World Rank: #50)
- USA: 311,630,000 (World Rank: #3)
- China: 1,339,724,852 (World Rank: #1)
Obviously, by a 'per capita' rating, Australia must have more emissions than China, and the USA, because they have substantially more people over which to spread their emissions. This is palpably, an unfair comparison mechanism.
You probably would have seen the chart below showing Australia as one of the largest emitters of CO2. United States is right at the Top, Australia next down, and China right at the bottom.
This convenient chart is used frequently to show Australia as a large emitter amongst other countries in the world (and the underlying subtext is the posit that we must surely need to act to fix the Climate Change problem).
Take a look at the next chart that is NOT measured Per Capita. These statistics are the actual amount that each country above emits.
It is clear from this chart (that shows the real amounts of CO2 each country emits) that Australia is NOT one of the biggest emitters in the world.
The Greens, The Labor Party, and Prof. Ross Garnaut (who is supposed to be 'independent') all show a clear bias, and deliberately mislead the Australian public with false statistics in order to gain support for the proposed Carbon Tax.
October 11th, 2011 - 08:10
There are a variety of other ways we could measure emissions efficiency, how about emission per unit of land area (suspect Australia is low), emissions per dollar GDP (probably highish) and emissions per value of exports (showing Australias emissions are because of exports, not domestic use). Could also look at net emissions – how much carbon is naturally sequestered in (relatively sparse) vegetation in Australia?
November 11th, 2011 - 22:00
We keep getting statistics which are usually suspect calculations on fuel purchases. Does anyone know where the amount of CO2 present in the Australian atmosphere is actually measured, if it is anywhere? If it is not measured but only estimated how can we know what impact the new tax regimes are having, if any? As far I am aware the only CO2 measurements are made beside a live volcano in Hawaii. Also, if measured in Australia, what correction is made for CO2 flows from Asia where the atmosphere is more heavily ‘polluted’? How is the correction estimated?
Agree with Shaun’s comments about the three entities mentioned and trust the Prof. will not be employed by any future government. His leanings are clear from his economic musings, his non-critical approach to IPCC climate pronouncements (demonstrably false) as demonstrated by his believer status, and his behaviour toward sceptics. Agree with Shaun also in that it is a neat trick (usual meaning) to land Australia with the carbon load of material exported and used to ‘pollute’ elsewhere. China, for instance, has cleaner coal fired stations than Australia. Is that to our credit or China’s? Per capita CO2 statistics are the usual politics of numbers. Lies, damn lies, and statistics. Also if you live in a wide open country with few people (Australia) how much impact do they have on their environment compared with city dwellers in a heavily populated small country with little space?
I can find no local statistics for CO2 in Australia and no accurate measure of temperature movements. Both are necessary to monitor the results of the ‘tax’. What we can measure, however, is the increased movement of flights in and out of Canberra and increased concrete and building effort to house the new bureaucrats. All done at great cost to the environment and tax payers.
January 31st, 2012 - 13:11
Thanks for your comment. You raise an excellent point…How do we actually measure the Carbon Dioxide emitted? Furthermore, how can we trust the government to give us accurate statistics when clearly in the past, they manipulate the figures to meet their needs?