Intensity Targets
The U.S. plans to cut carbon intensity per dollar of GDP by 18% by 2012. This has been criticised by the World Resources Institute as this approach does not ensure absolute reductions if GDP grows faster than intensity declines.
From 1990 to 2000, the carbon intensity of the U.S. economy declined by 17%, yet total emissions increased by 14%. In 2002, the U.S. National Environmental trust labelled carbon intensity, "a bookkeeping trick which allows the administration to do nothing about global warming while unsafe levels of emissions continue to rise."
Read more about this topic: Emission Intensity
Famous quotes containing the word intensity:
“We may say that feelings have two kinds of intensity. One is the intensity of the feeling itself, by which loud sounds are distinguished from faint ones, luminous colors from dark ones, highly chromatic colors from almost neutral tints, etc. The other is the intensity of consciousness that lays hold of the feeling, which makes the ticking of a watch actually heard infinitely more vivid than a cannon shot remembered to have been heard a few minutes ago.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)