3 ms·

Its not a red herring when huge numbers of people in less developed nations see the amount that people in the US use and aspire to have similar lifestyles. I f

by collyw 7y ago

Its not a red herring when huge numbers of people in less developed nations see the amount that people in the US use and aspire to have similar lifestyles. I find it quite strange that people appear to fall into two camps when discussing this issue. Either The US (and other richer nations) need to cut down emissions because they emit far more per capita OR China / India need to control their population growth and associated emissions. We should be encouraging both sides to do their part not arguing over which one it is.

goatinaboat 7y ago
“They did it why can’t we” is not a basis for serious policy making, is why. The environment doesn’t care about anyone’s lifestyle aspirations. The West in general has recognised the problem and is managing its environmental impact downwards in a controllable way. China and India are increasing their emissions as fast as they can to keep their present governments in power and no regard for the long term consequences which will ironically hit their own people hardest.
- bryanlarsen 7y ago
  > China and India are increasing their emissions as fast as they can The metric that the Paris Accords (rightly) judges China, the US and other countries on, is the change in emissions per PPP $ of GDP. By this measure China is absolutely destroying the United States, and is on track to meet it's Paris commitments. Holding your emissions almost constant while tripling your GDP is an impressive achievement; if the US had done the same thing they too would be meeting their Paris commitments. The Europeans may have reason to criticize China for not doing enough. Americans do not. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/25/lambasting-china-over-their-emissions-might-impress-the-us-but-it-could-be-costly-for-australia https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/25/lambas...
- dvdkhlng 7y ago
  I think western governments also manage their environmental impact downwards only as much as is possible without redistributing significant amounts of resources to the problem. I.e. they currently only look at lower hanging fruit , and to me it does not look like this will be sufficient to stay within the 1.5 deg warming target (even when disregarding countries reducing their emissions by less amounts). Look for example at the actions Germany is taking [1]. [1] https://www.aicgs.org/2019/10/germanys-new-climate-package-too-little-too-late/ https://www.aicgs.org/2019/10/germanys-new-climate-package-t...

by collyw 7y ago

goatinaboat 7y ago

“They did it why can’t we” is not a basis for serious policy making, is why. The environment doesn’t care about anyone’s lifestyle aspirations. The West in general has recognised the problem and is managing its environmental impact downwards in a controllable way. China and India are increasing their emissions as fast as they can to keep their present governments in power and no regard for the long term consequences which will ironically hit their own people hardest.

bryanlarsen 7y ago
> China and India are increasing their emissions as fast as they can The metric that the Paris Accords (rightly) judges China, the US and other countries on, is the change in emissions per PPP $ of GDP. By this measure China is absolutely destroying the United States, and is on track to meet it's Paris commitments. Holding your emissions almost constant while tripling your GDP is an impressive achievement; if the US had done the same thing they too would be meeting their Paris commitments. The Europeans may have reason to criticize China for not doing enough. Americans do not. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/25/lambasting-china-over-their-emissions-might-impress-the-us-but-it-could-be-costly-for-australia https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/25/lambas...
dvdkhlng 7y ago
I think western governments also manage their environmental impact downwards only as much as is possible without redistributing significant amounts of resources to the problem. I.e. they currently only look at lower hanging fruit , and to me it does not look like this will be sufficient to stay within the 1.5 deg warming target (even when disregarding countries reducing their emissions by less amounts). Look for example at the actions Germany is taking [1]. [1] https://www.aicgs.org/2019/10/germanys-new-climate-package-too-little-too-late/ https://www.aicgs.org/2019/10/germanys-new-climate-package-t...