Cutting carbon is a global hot potato!
This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science.
Reports of national carbon emissions often contradict each other. So who’s right?
Time for a sky-high referee!
Enter Doyeon Ahn and team at Morgan State University. They used satellites to scan carbon dioxide in over fifty cities around the world.
And the view from space was… surprising!
Wealthier cities tend to run cleaner economies. For the same economic output, African cities can emit about FIVE times more carbon than North American cities.
And huge cities actually emit LESS carbon per person because people live closer together.
So maybe it’s time to cool down the blame game… and turn up the carbon cutting!
Reference: Ahn, D. Y., Goldberg, D. L., Liu, F., Anderson, D. C., Coombes, T., Loughner, C. P., Kiel, M., & Chatterjee, A.(2025). Satellite-based analysis of CO₂ emissions from global cities: Regional, economic, and demographic attributes. AGU Advances. https://doi.org/10.1029/2025AV001747