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My personal opinion is that citizens of democracies need to demand urgent action from their government, and that action will include wealth transfer to developi

My personal opinion is that citizens of democracies need to demand urgent action from their government, and that action will include wealth transfer to developing nations to help them decarbonize and trade sanctions and theoretically even war (or at least the threat of war) against authoritarian countries that refuse to meet their global obligations. This is a global problem, and it requires global action to have any hope. For what it's worth, I think the risk of Chinese and Indian pollution is overstated. At least the Chinese government accepts that climate change is a real threat (unlike the current US administration) and is moving (too slowly, but still) in the right policy direction.

TeMPOraL 8y ago
Aren't Chinese moving faster than pretty much everyone? Last I checked, they were pretty into reducing use of coal, and deploying a lot of nuclear power plants instead. Agree about wealth transfer to developing nations, and honestly I'd also love to see IP transfer. Developing nations have the right to the same life-saving and life-improving technologies the West enjoys, but they also have the opportunity to leap-frog and skip the high-carbon-footprint parts, the way they did with phones (skipping landlines and going straight to cellular). We should at least strongly encourage them to do that leapfrogging - though preferably by subsidizing it instead of threatening war.
- ForHackernews 8y ago
  The Chinese are moving pretty fast, but the sad truth is that it's all too slow: https://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=8433 https://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=8433 The next couple generations are in for a rough, rough ride. Your point about IP transfer is a good one.
- rayiner 8y ago
  > Aren't Chinese moving faster than pretty much everyone? Last I checked, they were pretty into reducing use of coal, and deploying a lot of nuclear power plants instead. China currently has so many coal plants under construction that their output exceed’s the US coal industry’s entire output. China’s goal is to have 20% EVs in the consumer vehicles market by 2025. That means China will put 100 million new ICE vehicles on the road over the next 5 years, and will continue to put tens of millions of additional ICE vehicles on the road each year after that. China is building whole new cities. Construction releases enormous amounts of CO2. Construction releases so much CO2 that a fancy new LEED building takes decades to pay off its construction footprint with energy savings. From 2000 to 2015, China added over 6 gigatons of CO2 output. That’s more than the entire US. In 2017, China added 120 megatons of CO2 output while the US cut 40 megatons.

TeMPOraL 8y ago

Aren't Chinese moving faster than pretty much everyone? Last I checked, they were pretty into reducing use of coal, and deploying a lot of nuclear power plants instead. Agree about wealth transfer to developing nations, and honestly I'd also love to see IP transfer. Developing nations have the right to the same life-saving and life-improving technologies the West enjoys, but they also have the opportunity to leap-frog and skip the high-carbon-footprint parts, the way they did with phones (skipping landlines and going straight to cellular). We should at least strongly encourage them to do that leapfrogging - though preferably by subsidizing it instead of threatening war.

ForHackernews 8y ago
The Chinese are moving pretty fast, but the sad truth is that it's all too slow: https://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=8433 https://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=8433 The next couple generations are in for a rough, rough ride. Your point about IP transfer is a good one.
rayiner 8y ago
> Aren't Chinese moving faster than pretty much everyone? Last I checked, they were pretty into reducing use of coal, and deploying a lot of nuclear power plants instead. China currently has so many coal plants under construction that their output exceed’s the US coal industry’s entire output. China’s goal is to have 20% EVs in the consumer vehicles market by 2025. That means China will put 100 million new ICE vehicles on the road over the next 5 years, and will continue to put tens of millions of additional ICE vehicles on the road each year after that. China is building whole new cities. Construction releases enormous amounts of CO2. Construction releases so much CO2 that a fancy new LEED building takes decades to pay off its construction footprint with energy savings. From 2000 to 2015, China added over 6 gigatons of CO2 output. That’s more than the entire US. In 2017, China added 120 megatons of CO2 output while the US cut 40 megatons.