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I'd like to know who he thinks the "we" is in this article. Several countries are already using ~100% carbon-neutral electricity and the USA and Europe are prog

I'd like to know who he thinks the "we" is in this article. Several countries are already using ~100% carbon-neutral electricity and the USA and Europe are progressing rapidly. The main culprits are developing nations and China, so it's "them" who should be doing something urgently and "they" have a whole slew of other problems not covered by Gates' US-centric perspective. Reasonable approaches would be to bring manufacturing back to countries that use mostly clean energy (oh, and modern approaches to labor and human rights) and to tax imports from developing countries with poor CO2 record heavily until they fix their issues.

kristopolous 7y ago
So what's the right approach here? Could there be a BDS-like movement on things created with dirty energy? If there was a "made with renewable energy" certification on products, I'd certainly consider paying a premium and even being inconvenienced into finding them. Maybe even a version of the better world shopper (https://betterworldshopper.org/ https://betterworldshopper.org/) which does exclusively energy grades and then have forward-thinking grocery stores start to to put the grade on the label. I'd certainly shop at a store with that system at every conceivable opportunity.
teebot 7y ago
You could not be further from the truth. Carbon emissions per capita is way higher in the US and in Europe than in China and India.
- hollerith 7y ago
  China, 7.5 metric tons per person in 2014. Switzerland, 4.3. Sweden, 4.5. France, 4.6. Spain, 5.0. Italy, 5.3. UK, 6.5. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...
  - zamfi 7y ago
    Cherry-picking data much? That same article lists the EU overall at 8.6 and US at 17.
  - bogle 7y ago
    Not sure if you were trying to make a point about China having a greater output than European contries but you missed the USA: 16.5 (metric tons per capita).
  - natmaka 7y ago
    AFAIK a fair part of China's emissions are due to the production of goods not bought by Chinese but by Swiss, French, Spanish... nationals. China "decides" to produce, so this country is somewhat "guilty", but let's not neglect its "accomplices".
    - hollerith 7y ago
      Good point. Have an upvote.
- dagw 7y ago
  It's more complicated than that. Emissions in the US, Canada and some European countries are higher (per capita) while some other countries like the UK, Italy, Spain and France are below China. The EU as a whole ranks a bit below China on a per captia basis. However the other important factor here is the trend line. Most western countries above China in this ranking has a trend line pointing downwards, while China still has a trend line pointing upwards. So if both China and the US continue on their current paths then China will indeed soon surpass the US.
  - reallydontask 7y ago
    isn't it even more complicated than that? It would seem that manufacturing would have a significant impact on the figures and a lot of manufacturing has been outsourced to China/India. So how much of all the stuff that is bought and consumed in the EU/USA is actually produced in China or India?
antocv 7y ago
You are downvoted for apparant racism. The western world, of about 500 million people, pollute 4x more than China which has 1.2B people.
- lazyjones 7y ago
  > apparant racism. By people who apparently don't even know the meaning of the word. > The western world, of about 500 million people, pollute 4x more than China which has 1.2B people. The western world has a much larger population, but I'd like to see you back that claim up with reproducible numbers. It's a fact that CO2 emissions in China are growing rapidly (per capita and absolutely) while the "western world" is mostly reducing them and has been doing that for many years. Also, we have to rely on China's "official data", which may or may not be correct.
  - SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago
    > It's a fact that CO2 emissions in China are growing rapidly (per capita and absolutely) while the "western world" is mostly reducing them and has been doing that for many years. If it's a fact you should be able to cite a source? > Also, we have to rely on China's "official data", which may or may not be correct. The rest of the world is more than capable of monitoring China's emissions using satellite data.
  - sampo 7y ago
    > CO2 emissions in China are growing rapidly China rapidly tripled their emissions from 2000 to 2010, but after 2011 they have hardly increased at all. Second graph here: https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-chinas-co2-emissions-grew-slower-than-expected-in-2018 https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-chinas-co2-emissions-...
    - lazyjones 7y ago
      > Now let us return to why the reported Chinese CO2 emissions growth in the communique is so much lower than our projection in the 2018 Global Carbon Budget. The real reason is not clear, but the problem is an unexplained inconsistency in the coal statistics in the communique. [...] >There is no apparent explanation for these discrepancies. Some people have suggested that China’s statistics bureau is manipulating the data to make coal consumption growth look smoother than it actually is, although there is no direct evidence for this. Whatever the case, the discrepancy over coal means that overall CO2 growth could be as high as around 4% – compared to 2.3% reported in the communique – even before accounting for other sources of uncertainty that we usually include in our analyses. Those factors push the uncertainty range even wider, to -0.4% to +6.7%. ...
bgarbiak 7y ago
How much of the China's footprint is generated for manufacturing stuff for the developed nations? We may have 100% clean energy locally only because we've outsourced the dirty one.
- lazyjones 7y ago
  > We may have 100% clean energy locally only because we've outsourced the dirty one. We have outsourced it because they have been undercutting local producers in pollution, labor, human rights standards. Therefore bringing back manufacturing and taxing them is a much better solution overall than bringing more extreme measures to our already pretty "green" region.
- vixen99 7y ago
  Wicked consumers! Doubtless Chinese factory workers will find alternative employment in the fields should the need arise.

kristopolous 7y ago

So what's the right approach here? Could there be a BDS-like movement on things created with dirty energy? If there was a "made with renewable energy" certification on products, I'd certainly consider paying a premium and even being inconvenienced into finding them. Maybe even a version of the better world shopper (https://betterworldshopper.org/ https://betterworldshopper.org/) which does exclusively energy grades and then have forward-thinking grocery stores start to to put the grade on the label. I'd certainly shop at a store with that system at every conceivable opportunity.

teebot 7y ago

You could not be further from the truth. Carbon emissions per capita is way higher in the US and in Europe than in China and India.

hollerith 7y ago
China, 7.5 metric tons per person in 2014. Switzerland, 4.3. Sweden, 4.5. France, 4.6. Spain, 5.0. Italy, 5.3. UK, 6.5. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...
- zamfi 7y ago
  Cherry-picking data much? That same article lists the EU overall at 8.6 and US at 17.
- bogle 7y ago
  Not sure if you were trying to make a point about China having a greater output than European contries but you missed the USA: 16.5 (metric tons per capita).
- natmaka 7y ago
  AFAIK a fair part of China's emissions are due to the production of goods not bought by Chinese but by Swiss, French, Spanish... nationals. China "decides" to produce, so this country is somewhat "guilty", but let's not neglect its "accomplices".
  - hollerith 7y ago
    Good point. Have an upvote.
dagw 7y ago
It's more complicated than that. Emissions in the US, Canada and some European countries are higher (per capita) while some other countries like the UK, Italy, Spain and France are below China. The EU as a whole ranks a bit below China on a per captia basis. However the other important factor here is the trend line. Most western countries above China in this ranking has a trend line pointing downwards, while China still has a trend line pointing upwards. So if both China and the US continue on their current paths then China will indeed soon surpass the US.
- reallydontask 7y ago
  isn't it even more complicated than that? It would seem that manufacturing would have a significant impact on the figures and a lot of manufacturing has been outsourced to China/India. So how much of all the stuff that is bought and consumed in the EU/USA is actually produced in China or India?

antocv 7y ago

You are downvoted for apparant racism. The western world, of about 500 million people, pollute 4x more than China which has 1.2B people.

lazyjones 7y ago
> apparant racism. By people who apparently don't even know the meaning of the word. > The western world, of about 500 million people, pollute 4x more than China which has 1.2B people. The western world has a much larger population, but I'd like to see you back that claim up with reproducible numbers. It's a fact that CO2 emissions in China are growing rapidly (per capita and absolutely) while the "western world" is mostly reducing them and has been doing that for many years. Also, we have to rely on China's "official data", which may or may not be correct.
- SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago
  > It's a fact that CO2 emissions in China are growing rapidly (per capita and absolutely) while the "western world" is mostly reducing them and has been doing that for many years. If it's a fact you should be able to cite a source? > Also, we have to rely on China's "official data", which may or may not be correct. The rest of the world is more than capable of monitoring China's emissions using satellite data.
- sampo 7y ago
  > CO2 emissions in China are growing rapidly China rapidly tripled their emissions from 2000 to 2010, but after 2011 they have hardly increased at all. Second graph here: https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-chinas-co2-emissions-grew-slower-than-expected-in-2018 https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-chinas-co2-emissions-...
  - lazyjones 7y ago
    > Now let us return to why the reported Chinese CO2 emissions growth in the communique is so much lower than our projection in the 2018 Global Carbon Budget. The real reason is not clear, but the problem is an unexplained inconsistency in the coal statistics in the communique. [...] >There is no apparent explanation for these discrepancies. Some people have suggested that China’s statistics bureau is manipulating the data to make coal consumption growth look smoother than it actually is, although there is no direct evidence for this. Whatever the case, the discrepancy over coal means that overall CO2 growth could be as high as around 4% – compared to 2.3% reported in the communique – even before accounting for other sources of uncertainty that we usually include in our analyses. Those factors push the uncertainty range even wider, to -0.4% to +6.7%. ...

bgarbiak 7y ago

How much of the China's footprint is generated for manufacturing stuff for the developed nations? We may have 100% clean energy locally only because we've outsourced the dirty one.

lazyjones 7y ago
> We may have 100% clean energy locally only because we've outsourced the dirty one. We have outsourced it because they have been undercutting local producers in pollution, labor, human rights standards. Therefore bringing back manufacturing and taxing them is a much better solution overall than bringing more extreme measures to our already pretty "green" region.
vixen99 7y ago
Wicked consumers! Doubtless Chinese factory workers will find alternative employment in the fields should the need arise.