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Things to keep in mind:

“If we subscribe to the idea of “contraction and convergence,” which means that all countries aim eventually to have equal per-capita emissions, then Britain needs to aim for cuts greater than 85%: it should get down from its current 11 tons of CO2 equivalents per year per person to roughly 1 ton per year per person by 2050.” Mackay (2009)

Here are some numbers to compare this target of “roughly 1 ton per year per person” with:

  1. Estimates of territorial and consumption-based CO2 emissions in tons per capita for a couple of countries for the year 2023 (from our world in data).
Territorial Consumption-based
Belgium 7 17
Netherlands 6 8
France 4 6
US 14 16
China 9 8
India 2 2
Indonesia 3 3
Ethiopia <1 <1

When accounting for the CO2 associated with imported goods, Belgians are probably worse than Americans! Note, this is CO2, not CO2 equivalents. Actual greenhouse gas emissions are even more terrifying.

  1. Estimated greenhouse gas emissions for round-trip flights from Brussels to elsewhere (https://skysonar.com/en-us/tools/flight-carbon-calculator):
Destination CO2eq ton per capita
Vienna 0.7
Barcelona 0.8
Oslo 0.8
Istanbul 0.9
Casablanca 1.0
Cairo 1.4
Addis Ababa 2.1
New York 2.2
Johannesburg 3.3
Mexico city 3.4
Bangkok 3.4
Rio de Janeiro 3.4
Santiago 4.4
Melbourne 6.1
Auckland 6.8

Clearly, air travel is incompatible with social justice.

  1. A typical passenger vehicle emits roughly 0.25 ton CO2 per 1000 km see here. Commuting to work like my (and many of my peers’) parents used to do likely amounts to more than 2 tons CO2 per year.

Some things on the internet I often find myself recommending:


alle rechten voorbehouden (AZ 2025) – whatever that means.