Do global CO2 levels reflect variations in human fossil fuel burning?
CO2 is emitted primarily in urban areas. But it’s measured (deliberately) in very remote non-urban areas, like the south pole, or a mountaintop in the middle of the Pacific. The reason they measure CO2 in remote areas like that is so they get the “background” CO2 level, in other words, the lowest level you are likely to find anywhere. Elsewhere it’s going to be higher. But that also means it’s going to take a while before changes in global GDP (and therefore carbon usage) are reflected in CO2 growth levels when you look at the background level. Just a quick eyeball of the annual CO2 growth compared to the annual global GDP growth shows not much correlation, probably because the time frames are so long that any economic signal gets smeared out.
