Calculating national carbon footprints is no simple matter, the Global Footprint Network reports, in a data analysis released ahead of the United Nations climate summit in New York September 23. While EU nations “toot their horns about declining emissions,” GFN says, their calculations exclude emissions outside their borders embodied in the goods and services they use. “Not surprisingly, domestic emissions in countries like the US, the UK, and Switzerland were actually lower than the overall carbon emissions globally associated with the products their citizens consume—because they have large ecological footprints and consume many goods produced beyond their borders,” the network notes. So “pointing fingers is no simple matter. Rather, it’s in each nation’s self-interest to establish policies to reduce its citizens’ carbon and ecological footprints. The alternative is more political, economic, and climate instability and uncertainty.”
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