If these were metrics for your startup I’d call them vanity metrics. You just used data to explain that the US captures higher margins on their products and China does a lot of low margin or commodity production.
The data doesn’t help us inform an opinion of whose carbon use is better than others.
This is very naive thinking. Let's begin with the fact that imports aren't GDP. GDP is the value of goods and services produced inside the country. Imports, by definition, are produced outside the country.
Imports power GDP growth. Let me illustrate.
60% of Wal-Mart's imports in 2023 came from China.[1] Wal-Mart is also the largest private employer in the world.[2] Wal-Mart generates billions of dollars of revenue and profit - GDP in other words - by selling imports from China.
Imagine the economic hardship if even just Wal-Mart was cut off from Chinese imports. They'd lose at least half their sales overnight. Up to half their stores might close, or half the workforce might lose their jobs. That's almost 800k people. The unemployment rate goes up 60 basis points overnight. That's just one company.
That only tells us China produces lower-margin goods. It isn't surprising that a developed country has higher labor productivity than a developing or middle-income one. Using that to decide whose carbon emissions are "fairer" is a fools errand.
Yes, but I think gross output as % of global share still illustrative proxy of how much resource intensive physical goods are produced relative to emissions. That's closer to maximizing "production" than using GDP/value added as % of global share which is proxy for maximizing "value".
The goal is the maximum production per unit of CO2 - for every unit of CO2 you maximize what is produced from it.
Yes, the US produces 13.49% of all global CO2, but it also produces 25.22% of all output.
China produces 31% of all CO2 emissions, but only 17% of all production.