The United Nations climate change conference, COP 27, is going on in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt this week.
This summary of the world's largest CO2 emitters on VisualCapitalist.com got me thinking.
But wouldn't it be fairer to look at emissions on a per-capita basis?
Yes, but some lower-income polluters are just making refrigerators for the rich ones, and the expansion of CO2 levels can largely be attributed to the industrial revolution, which benefitted rich countries more. So I multiplied per capita emissions by per capita GDP to arrive at the following "CO2 Responsibility Index"! A ranking of the 15 countries reaping the most benefit from (and most able to contribute to) the cost of addressing global climate change.
Here is the Index by itself.
How much will the clean-up cost? We'll be watching (and paying) for it with compound interest :).