Nothing beats a nice clean visual presentation to hammer home a point.

Point here…we are some energy hoggin’ you-know-whatters but we’re not alone.  To be fair, it would probably be more appropriate to collapse the global emissions of all the EU nations into one bubble rather than breaking it down by individual country.   Are you as surprised as I am to see how much China emits?  This probably helps explain why discussions about Co2 emissions revolved around rights based claims tied to development.  The “if you did it, so can we” logic is hard to combat as a moral argument.  Perhaps the solution is for the west to accept a rights based frame and work on politically feasible ways to compensate the developing world for ceding “development rights”?  Indeed African nations are seeking global warming reparations from the “developed” world.  This is obviously a non-starter in the U.S.  I’m sure the Obama administration would love that debate!

But there might be more benign ways to get at the same idea.  Instead of direct cash transfers, you could assist developing economies through low-interest “green loans,” rebates for purcahsing “green” US or European equipment, or technical support for greening African industry.  Regrettably, the framing might have to be paternalistic for it to “stick” with American and European electorates.  Aid to “developing” nations connotes a much different response than “reparations”…especially in the US.

via Chart Porn.

Update:
Regardless of your view on climate change, this is cool policy entrepreneurship. Or maybe I’m a sucker for digitized aging! Via Good blog