Kolloquium Geoinformatik  The Geography of Suburban Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions

The common assumption is that cities are the main producers of global greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). Multiple publications by a research group that I am a member of have shown that cities, even when very generously defined as urbanized areas with a significant extent, produce only 33% to 40% of all GHG emissions. This begs the question where and by whom is the bulk of GHGs produced. It turns out that it is the suburbs that place the biggest burden on our planet's sustainability and that cities are both on a per capita basis as well as in absolute terms rather efficient. Using the spatially disaggregated EDGAR dataset of the Joint Research Centre (Ispra, Italy), I present the results of a spatial analysis of some 20 different emission producers for a range of emission types, all aggregated to CO2-equivalents. The regional scale analysis shows that while the overall role of suburban rings is uncontentious, the actual culprits vary widely from region to region.