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Thanks for the catch, off the top of my head I remembered that India was #3 but didn't realize how far below the US they were. I still think the basic thesis I

Thanks for the catch, off the top of my head I remembered that India was #3 but didn't realize how far below the US they were. I still think the basic thesis I am driving at holds, instead of cleaning up their act 20 years ago, multinational corporations shipped all of these polluting jobs to nations where it was OK to pollute, acting as a sort of escape valve which allowed them to continue belching carbon into the air and keep their profits high. US and EU industry are among the cleanest in the world and asking the working class in these places to make more sacrifices is a slap in the face which has been going on for years. The Kyoto Protocol established no carbon targets for developing countries. The Paris Agreement established targets but they were laxer than the targets for developed countries. This is a decarbonization strategy designed to optimize the profits of multinational corporations. If the working and middle classes don't push back it will continue, but corporate-owned media is ready to put Greta Thunberg on stage at every opportunity and shame you for questioning any part of the party line on climate change.

bambataa 7y ago
The question of apportioning responsibility (or "blame", if you prefer) is very tricky. Many Americans (and Europeans etc) have for decades had the relatively luxury of living comparatively emissions-intensive lives without having to worry about the environmental impact of their lives. The differentiated responsibility in the treaties is partly to account for historical emissions. Whether or not that felt like a luxury at the time is kind of irrelevant from an accounting perspective but important from a political perspective. That said, for someone in the U.S. to try and pass off responsibility to a country emitting three times less per capita [1] seems borderline absurd to me. And that's not even accounting for the fact that -- as you point out -- much of China's emissions are exported from the U.S and EU. If the U.S. had the cleanest industry and its people had already made significant sacrifices in the name of climate protection we should see that the U.S. has comparatively low per-capita emissions. It clearly doesn't. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/26/us-leads-greenhouse-gas-emissions-on-a-per-capita-basis-report-finds.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/26/us-leads-greenhouse-gas-emis...
tzs 7y ago
> US and EU industry are among the cleanest in the world and asking the working class in these places to make more sacrifices is a slap in the face which has been going on for years US is 16.1 metric tons per capita in 2018. The only countries or territories higher than the US are Kazakhstan (16.8), Australia (16.8), Luxembourg (16.9), Oman (17.6), Saudi Arabia (18.6), Estonia (18.6), Gibraltar (21.8), Bahrain (21.8), United Arab Emirates (22.4), Kuwait (23.9), Trinidad and Tobago (26.2), New Caledonia (26.2), Qatar (38.2), Curaçao (52.1), and Palau (58.0). The EU average is 8.6. China is 8.0. India is 1.9. I don't see how the US qualifies as among the cleanest.
- apatters 7y ago
  Emissions per capita is not a good metric. It favors states which have millions of people who are living in poverty and who thus by definition have low consumption, which translates to low emissions. The downside of course is that these people are starving. If you imported 200 million people into the US in poverty conditions and did nothing to improve their situation, then all of a sudden US per capita emissions would look great too. In the worst case scenario if you attach policy to this metric you might see states gaming it by deciding to make sure their poor people stay that way (probably already on the minds of policy makers in some authoritarian states). Admittedly I don't have numbers handy, but I think it would be better to look at emissions generated per dollar of economic output, particularly in industries that generate the most emissions. Then you can start inferring judgements about whether it's better for humanity to open a new factory in China or in the USA, and those two states have to compete on cleanliness if they want to grow their economic output. I bet this sort of measurement would paint the US in a much more favorable light than per capita (and the EU even better). If adding the next $100B to the world economy in the US or EU is cleaner than adding it in China, why shouldn't we push for that?

bambataa 7y ago

The question of apportioning responsibility (or "blame", if you prefer) is very tricky. Many Americans (and Europeans etc) have for decades had the relatively luxury of living comparatively emissions-intensive lives without having to worry about the environmental impact of their lives. The differentiated responsibility in the treaties is partly to account for historical emissions. Whether or not that felt like a luxury at the time is kind of irrelevant from an accounting perspective but important from a political perspective. That said, for someone in the U.S. to try and pass off responsibility to a country emitting three times less per capita [1] seems borderline absurd to me. And that's not even accounting for the fact that -- as you point out -- much of China's emissions are exported from the U.S and EU. If the U.S. had the cleanest industry and its people had already made significant sacrifices in the name of climate protection we should see that the U.S. has comparatively low per-capita emissions. It clearly doesn't. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/26/us-leads-greenhouse-gas-emissions-on-a-per-capita-basis-report-finds.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/26/us-leads-greenhouse-gas-emis...

tzs 7y ago

> US and EU industry are among the cleanest in the world and asking the working class in these places to make more sacrifices is a slap in the face which has been going on for years US is 16.1 metric tons per capita in 2018. The only countries or territories higher than the US are Kazakhstan (16.8), Australia (16.8), Luxembourg (16.9), Oman (17.6), Saudi Arabia (18.6), Estonia (18.6), Gibraltar (21.8), Bahrain (21.8), United Arab Emirates (22.4), Kuwait (23.9), Trinidad and Tobago (26.2), New Caledonia (26.2), Qatar (38.2), Curaçao (52.1), and Palau (58.0). The EU average is 8.6. China is 8.0. India is 1.9. I don't see how the US qualifies as among the cleanest.

apatters 7y ago
Emissions per capita is not a good metric. It favors states which have millions of people who are living in poverty and who thus by definition have low consumption, which translates to low emissions. The downside of course is that these people are starving. If you imported 200 million people into the US in poverty conditions and did nothing to improve their situation, then all of a sudden US per capita emissions would look great too. In the worst case scenario if you attach policy to this metric you might see states gaming it by deciding to make sure their poor people stay that way (probably already on the minds of policy makers in some authoritarian states). Admittedly I don't have numbers handy, but I think it would be better to look at emissions generated per dollar of economic output, particularly in industries that generate the most emissions. Then you can start inferring judgements about whether it's better for humanity to open a new factory in China or in the USA, and those two states have to compete on cleanliness if they want to grow their economic output. I bet this sort of measurement would paint the US in a much more favorable light than per capita (and the EU even better). If adding the next $100B to the world economy in the US or EU is cleaner than adding it in China, why shouldn't we push for that?