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I think what this misses is that the per-capita emissions matter too, not just overall emissions. It's kind of unrealistic to ask a country to lower its emissi
by swampthing 9y ago
I think what this misses is that the per-capita emissions matter too, not just overall emissions. It's kind of unrealistic to ask a country to lower its emissions when its per-capita emissions are already just a fraction of yours.
To give a more concrete analogy - suppose there are two countries, A and B. People in both countries like eating tuna. A has far fewer people than B, but the average person in A eats 10x more tuna than the average person in B. As tuna supplies dwindle, would it be reasonable for A to ask B to reduce their consumption of tuna?
- xienze 9y agoWhy don't you exclude the half of the Chinese population that's basically living a medieval lifestyle and recalculate those per-capita numbers, hmm?
- swampthing 9y agoWhat would be the rationale for doing so? Should we also exclude the half of the US population that uses the least carbon emissions? I'm not saying that we shouldn't exclude them - these aren't rhetorical questions. I'm just trying to understand your reasoning.
- xienze 9y ago> I'm just trying to understand your reasoning. They completely drag down the per capita numbers. You're basically lumping people producing near-US levels of emissions with half the population producing basically nothing. > Should we also exclude the half of the US population that uses the least carbon emissions? Not anywhere close in terms of magnitude.
- swampthing 9y agoI don't really understand why the fact that they drag down the per-capita numbers is a rationale for excluding them. Why is it that the people producing no emissions should not be allowed to raise their standard of living to that of people in the US?
- rtx 9y agoBecause we will destroy the planet. We can't have everyone living at that level.
- swampthing 9y agoAgreed - so is it more fair to have everyone living at the same sustainable level, or is it more fair to restrict people with a low carbon footprint from increasing their footprint, so that the people with a large carbon footprint can sustain their way of living? Obviously, as a country, you want to get away with whatever you can. I'm just saying it's difficult to get people to agree to something that they think is unfair to them.