Emission intensities are how much pollution something makes when it works.
Imagine you have two toy cars, one is a tiny robot car that zooms around on batteries, and the other is a big, loud monster truck that roars with a gas engine. Both of them move from point A to point B, but the monster truck uses way more fuel to do it, and makes much more smoke.
That’s like emission intensity, it's how much pollution is made for every unit of work done. The tiny robot car has a low emission intensity because it doesn’t use much fuel or make much smoke. The monster truck has a high emission intensity because it uses a lot of fuel and makes a lot of smoke.
So, when we talk about making things cleaner, we're trying to lower the emission intensity, like helping the tiny robot car win the race by making the monster truck use less fuel or switch to batteries too.
Examples
- A factory emits a lot of carbon dioxide, but if it uses less fuel to make the same amount of products, its emission intensity is lower.
- If two countries produce the same number of goods, the one with fewer emissions has a lower emission intensity.
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See also
- What are emissions elsewhere?
- How Do Mangroves Clean Up Pollution?
- How pollution is changing the ocean's chemistry | Triona McGrath?
- How do radioactive materials move in the environment?
- What are persistent organic pollutants?