Carbon dioxide emissions serve as sites for all kinds of struggle, and most of them are mediated by the technologies and techniques to measure, show, represent, calculate and map related data.  Cartograms, increasingly popular mapping techniques of showing the size of regions in proportional to other different kinds of datasets, for example, GDP, population, etc., can also be used to show the geographical distribution of Carbon dioxide emissions.

However, it should be noted that the unit of analysis (usually countries) is a very political issue.  Combining two sets of datasets in 2006, I have drawn one cartogram mapping carbon dioxide emissions in East Asia:

East Asia Carbon Emissions Map 2006 (Note: missing data for Tibet)

The territories for each administrative regions are adjusted in proportion to carbon dioxide emissions.
Datasets: EIA (2009) for Asian countries and Jiansheng Qu, et. al (2008) for Chinese province-level regions.
EIA (2009): http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/country/
Jiansheng Qu, et. al (2008) 曲建升、王琴、曾静静、张志强等，科学研究动态监测快报-气候变化科学专辑，2008年第12期

The above cartogram can be contrasted with a global map, done by the SASI Research Group at University of Sheffield, which also uses the similar cartogram techniques.   However, despite the fact that the overall proportional areas for each countries are similar in both maps, it should be obvious that the western part of China, including Xinjiang Uygur (Xinjiang) and Tibet (Xiang) are much smaller in my cartogram then the SASI’s global one. The global map seems to misrepresent the contribution of western China since it is assumed to be even within the border of China. An improved global map may in the future include the sub-regions or provinces of Russia, Canada, US, Australia, India and of course China.

It is then easy to conclude that the coastal areas of China contribute to the bulk of carbon dioxide emissions with prominent contributing cases like Shandong.  Readers should be aware that the Chinese data source (Qu et. al, 2008) for the year of 2006 does not include Tibet.   Among very few things that the Chinese authorities in Beijing agrees with Dalai Lama is that Tibet suffers the most impact from global warming.   (They differ in related geo-political strategies, though.)

The unit of analysis matters for mapping carbon dioxide emissions, and it should matter for calculating, measuring and thus governing the issue.   It might be unthinkable for cartographers to combine all European nations, which have diverse country profiles, into one block.  However, it is very common for cartographers (and also social scientists) to combine all Chinese provinces for analysis, without recognizing the fact that the economy size of a Chinese province like Guangdong is as large as Sweden.   The implications of this reflection on unit of analysis is enormous.   The unit of analysis is already bounded with administrative and political boundaries, which should be taken into consideration both for research and governance.

Thus, I offer this map to point a road from Copenhagen to Tibet.  My own assessment for success is whether the environment in Tibet can be saved, not just for Tibet or China, but for various Asian countries that are dependent on the this vital region for water and ecological sustainability. It is important to show Tibet by not showing the Tibet in the East Asia Carbon Emissions Map 2006 above.   The data is not available for Tibet, which may suggest that the measuring efforts in China has not formally extended to Tibet. 

It reminds me of another missing category in Chinese data: military.   It is well-known that the population data in China usually does not include military, which on the other hand has sizable presence in Tibet.  Though I am not sure how military activities contribute to carbon dioxide emissions except for logistic ones, it should be pointed out that Dalai Lama propose demilitarization of Tibet for a long time.

Let the global journey to understand global warming begin from Copenhagen to Tibet.