I’ve written about that in the context of climate change:
“Increasing public clean energy R&D does not necessarily require strong multilateralism or harmonized national policies. This makes it very tractable politically and uniquely positioned in the space of all climate policies as a decentralized approach.
And even small countries can contribute. Take Estonia. They have the second largest per capita CO₂ footprint in the EU and by far the most carbon-intensive economy among the OECD countries, because they burn a lot of shale oil.[8]
So are Estonia’s climate policies the worst in the world?[9] Quite the opposite is true: a country with just 1.5 million citizens whose energy footprints amount to only 0.02% of the global total won’t contribute much to climate change.
But more importantly, Estonia spends more than any other country on clean energy R&D relative to GDP. In fact, relative to GDP they spend more than twice as much as Norway. So perhaps Estonia should be regarded as a world leader on climate change despite their high emissions, because increasing public clean energy R&D is the most effective climate change policy. Because of diminishing returns, it is very hard to imagine reducing Estonian emissions to zero. This would mean replacing every last lightbulb with LEDs powered by zero carbon energy and having everyone fly in electric planes. It is much easier to conceive of an Estonian scientist or engineer who improves, say, carbon capture technology so that the diffuse benefits reduce global emissions by 0.02%.
Alas, Estonia’s GDP is small in absolute terms. This is why we need many more countries to be like Estonia.” [source]
I’ve written about that in the context of climate change:
“Increasing public clean energy R&D does not necessarily require strong multilateralism or harmonized national policies. This makes it very tractable politically and uniquely positioned in the space of all climate policies as a decentralized approach.
And even small countries can contribute. Take Estonia. They have the second largest per capita CO₂ footprint in the EU and by far the most carbon-intensive economy among the OECD countries, because they burn a lot of shale oil.[8]
So are Estonia’s climate policies the worst in the world?[9] Quite the opposite is true: a country with just 1.5 million citizens whose energy footprints amount to only 0.02% of the global total won’t contribute much to climate change.
But more importantly, Estonia spends more than any other country on clean energy R&D relative to GDP. In fact, relative to GDP they spend more than twice as much as Norway. So perhaps Estonia should be regarded as a world leader on climate change despite their high emissions, because increasing public clean energy R&D is the most effective climate change policy. Because of diminishing returns, it is very hard to imagine reducing Estonian emissions to zero. This would mean replacing every last lightbulb with LEDs powered by zero carbon energy and having everyone fly in electric planes. It is much easier to conceive of an Estonian scientist or engineer who improves, say, carbon capture technology so that the diffuse benefits reduce global emissions by 0.02%.
Alas, Estonia’s GDP is small in absolute terms. This is why we need many more countries to be like Estonia.” [source]