Accounting for carbon dioxide emissions: A matter of time

摘要

Carbon dioxide emissions in one country can support consumption of goods and services in another country; countries and their CO_2 emissions are linked together by international trade. The study of CO_2 emissions embodied in international trade was largely opened up by Peters and Hertwich (1). In PNAS, Peters et al. (2) introduce a dimension into this field of study, and that dimension is time. It is not often that one team of researchers has done so much to introduce a field of inquiry and then expand it so rapidly, giving us insights into the challenges and potential solutions to the energy/carbon/climate problem we all face.