So how 'special' are we?

Harper to tell G8 Canada 'special' on climate change.


Click to enlarge.
The above graphic shows the relationship between wealth and energy consumption, plotting per capita energy consumption (x axis) against per capita income (y axis) for all countries with more than 20 million inhabitants in 2006.
Canada is indeed special. With the highest energy consumption per person in the world, we still fall behind Japan, the US and the UK in our ability to translate that consumption into wealth, while Germany and France require roughly half our energy consumption to maintain the same GDP as us.

The red dot represents the world average, with China and India falling well below it in both energy consumption and income.
I would remind those who prefer whole country stats over the social justice issues exposed in per capita stats that the environment doesn't much care about country names and boundaries.
Just sayin', Steve.

Image courtesy of Frank van Mierlo