CO2 emissions vary greatly per person but the average American produces about 19.78 metric tonnes (21.8 tons) of CO2 emissions each year.
Australians produce even more at 20.6 tonnes per person per year while German citizens only product 10.4 tonnes per person per year.
Developed countries tend to produce the most CO2 per capita while developing nations generally produce less.
Zambia only produced 0.23 tonnes per person and even though China is the biggest producer of carbon it’s emissions per capita was only 4.58 tonnes.
This data is pulled from a chart I found on The Guardian which shows emissions per country broken down into per capita.
How Many Trees Does It Take To Offset Your Carbon Emissions?
Trees absorb roughly 48 lbs (21.77 kg) per year (learn more).
This means it would take 909 trees to absorb the CO2 your average american produces each year.
It would take 947 trees for each Australian, 211 trees for each Chinese person and 11 trees for each Zambian.
I don’t know about you but I definitely don’t have over 900 trees in my backyard. In fact I would need over 4,500 in my backyard just to make up for the emissions produces by myself, my wife and our 3 kids.
As you can see we need to do something about our emissions.
A small but super cost effective first step is to replace all your lights with LED lights. This will pay for itself in a year and helped my own household save over half a tonne of emissions per year. It’s a drop in the bucket with the 100 tonnes my family likely produces, but it’s a step in the right direction.
Another small strategy is to get a cooler with the best ice retention when you’re travelling. Less ice usage means less refrigeration and saves some energy.
Seems the simplest way to reduce CO2 in the long term is to have less people. This is especially true for people in the developed world to have less children (less then 2.2) and try to curb immigration from developing countries to developed.