Bookmark in Connotea
Does it make sense to compare cities’ per capita emissions?
Posted by Olive Heffernan on behalf of Paty Romero Lankao
It does make sense to compare the per capita CO2 emissions of Mexico City and Los Angeles (see figure below) to illuminate the debate on shared but differentiated responsibilities on greenhouse gases emissions and show that just as urban centers register different levels and paths of economic development, cities do not contribute at the same level to global warming. For instance, the real GDP per capita of Los Angeles (US$40,031) is almost 3 times that of Mexico City (US$13,470). The paradox here is that many of those urban centers with almost negligible contributions to the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are more vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change are. One reason of this relates to the local level of expenditures per capita in Mexico City, which are similarly tiny when compared with those of Los Angeles. In such conditions, the binding constraint for this and other cities of the developing world is the lack of economic resources from peoples’ taxes and of economic growth to deal with any component of the climate agenda.
Continue reading "Does it make sense to compare cities’ per capita emissions?" »