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...which sounds totally unrealistic until you compare US energy usage to other countries: http://robinlinacre.com/country_energy_usage http://robinlinacre.com/c

by RobinL 6y ago

...which sounds totally unrealistic until you compare US energy usage to other countries: http://robinlinacre.com/country_energy_usage http://robinlinacre.com/country_energy_usage (Note: the above does not include the amount of energy embodied in imported goods, so if anything the energy of rich countries is even higher)

oblio 6y ago
> RuntimeError: pepc_def could not be resolved > Select metric to plot > RuntimeError: table_data_to_plot could not be resolved > RuntimeError: table_data_to_plot could not be resolved :-(
- RobinL 6y ago
  looks like CORS anywhere doesn't like so much traffic: 'cors-anywhere.herokuapp.com/http://api.worldbank.org/countries/all/indicators/TX.VAL.MRCH.CD.WT?date=2014%3A2014&format=json&per_page=1000:1 http://api.worldbank.org/countries/all/indicators/TX.VAL.MRC... Failed to load resource: the server responded with a status of 429 (Too Many Requests)' :-( the observablehq version is still working though: https://observablehq.com/@robinl/energy-usage-and-goods-imports-and-exports https://observablehq.com/@robinl/energy-usage-and-goods-impo...
gedy 6y ago
...which is also misleading because comparison is "per capita" which means very little to actual climate change, only absolute numbers (like China's) matter.
- enitihas 6y ago
  Per capita is what matters, absolute numbers don't make any sense. People consume resources per capita. Saying that if China was 10 different countries those countries would have 10x lower emission targets doesn't make sense. The per capita carbon emission of a US or another developed country citizen is much higher than that of developing countries like India. Staying in a smaller country by population shouldn't be a blanket license to emit more carbon per capita.
  - 7952 6y ago
    China has a moral obligation to reduce emissions because of high absolute values. America has a moral obligation because of high per-capita values.
    - Zhyl 6y ago
      Absolutely. High absolute indicates a lot of damage and should be reduced. High per-capita indicates a lot of excess and/or waste, which should be reduced.
    - joshuaissac 6y ago
      America has high absolute values, as well, and is ranked second. While its carbon emissions are only just over half of China's, they are also more than double that of India in third place, and comprise around 15% of total global emissions (based on 2018 data).
  - bad_user 6y ago
    While I agree, large population densities happen due to poverty, the more poor people get, the more children they'll have. Western countries have lower population densities than many Asian countries. On one hand these are richer countries that maybe could afford the bill. On the other hand this is also a tax for having a lower birth rate that could have unintended consequences. Like raising poverty levels, or pro-imigration or pro-child policies. With enough economic incentive to grow the population, the population will be grown via government policies, exactly what happened in many countries post WW2. The other issue I'm seeing is that developed countries export a lot of goods and services, being efficient at it. Just as an example, agriculture in Holland is extremely efficient. Raising prices in Holland due to CO₂ emissions will move some of that production locally elsewhere in the EU, possibly yielding greater CO₂ emissions overall. This may be good for local farmers, I'm all for eating produce grown locally, but not necessarily for the environment. Basically some countries are exporting much of their pollution and by imposing limits per country some of that pollution might get worse when moved locally. I agree that "per capita" is probably the best we have, it's unfair to impose harsher restrictions on developing countries, given that developed countries yielded much worse emissions in the 20th century. Since 1960 we've had great progress in eliminating extreme poverty across the world. If that progress continues, we can expect a flattening population level, which is already happening. But in calculating allowed emissions per country, it isn't so clear cut and I hope all variables are taken into consideration.
- adrianN 6y ago
  And if we divide the world into 7 billion countries, nobody needs to do anything, right?
  - gedy 6y ago
    Point is more that we need to do something about China, no matter the "per capita" distraction: https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2018/07/01/china-emits-more-carbon-dioxide-than-the-u-s-and-eu-combined/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2018/07/01/china-emits-...
    - jbay808 6y ago
      Point is more that if a successful separatist movement in China, which just redraws borders without closing any power plants, is all it takes to turn that reasoning into "we need to do something about USA", then it seems like a wonky measurement. A measurement that says China is the problem but not Huabei, Dongbei, Huadong, Zhongnan, Xinan, or Xibei, is wonky. A measurement that says the EU emits too much carbon but France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece, and Poland don't, is also wonky. If you start from a premise that each human has an equal right to emit carbon as any other, regardless of which country they're born in, then you naturally get per-capita measures as a result. An absolute measure implies that each country has an equal right to emit carbon, but since countries are fluid and artificial constructs, that results in some pretty weird consequences, like each person in Britain being allowed to burn more gasoline if Scotland leaves the UK. Growing up in times of stability it might seem like countries are concrete and unchangeable, but borders move and countries appear and disappear all the time, and an international law that only applied to the top emitter would likely be enough pressure to cause that country to redefine itself as an informal federation of multiple states.
- UncleMeat 6y ago
  Using this argument we could split the world into “China” and “not China”. Suddenly, China is dwarfed by “not China” and no longer matters!
jandrewrogers 6y ago
The US has a large per capita CO2 footprint that could be significantly reduced, but CO2 production is correlated with GDP and the US has a significantly higher GDP per capita than Europe. Countries that produce more per capita also use more energy per capita on average, which makes sense. Transportation in the US will have a larger CO2 footprint than other countries for a very long time simply by virtue of size and geographic population dispersion. Similarly, the vast herds of ungulates aren't going away no matter what we do with agriculture, it is a critical and natural part of the North American ecosystem. What constitutes a reasonable CO2 footprint per capita has a significant dependency on local conditions. Some regions have intrinsically higher CO2 footprints than others, ceterus paribus. In a world where everyone is trying to optimize for CO2 footprint (not the case today), a fair result will still have large differences across regions.
- cheerlessbog 6y ago
  > Similarly, the vast herds of ungulates aren't going away no matter what we do with agriculture, it is a critical and natural part of the North American ecosystem. You don’t mean the 95 million cattle of the US meat and milk industry? Those are very unnatural, and a significant contribution to AGW.
  - jandrewrogers 6y ago
    North America had 60 million bison before they were replaced with cattle. The necessity of having vast herds of large ungulates in western North America to prevent ecosystem collapse is well understood. If we stopped raising cattle, we'd have to replace them with bison, which have a similar footprint. It may be a smaller herd, but it will be a very large herd nonetheless. That aside, at no point in the foreseeable future will people stop eating meat and dairy, so total elimination is a bit of a moot point.
- cmarschner 6y ago
  Europe has shown in recent years that GDP growth can get decoupled from CO2 [1]. Also, it‘s not that the big emittors are poor countries - in the light of long-term survival, on could deal with lower GDPs than what many countries have today. It‘s just a matter of priorities. [1] eg https://qz.com/791865/climate-change-charting-the-extraordinary-decoupling-between-gdp-and-carbon-emissions/ https://qz.com/791865/climate-change-charting-the-extraordin...

by RobinL 6y ago

oblio 6y ago

> RuntimeError: pepc_def could not be resolved > Select metric to plot > RuntimeError: table_data_to_plot could not be resolved > RuntimeError: table_data_to_plot could not be resolved :-(

RobinL 6y ago
looks like CORS anywhere doesn't like so much traffic: 'cors-anywhere.herokuapp.com/http://api.worldbank.org/countries/all/indicators/TX.VAL.MRCH.CD.WT?date=2014%3A2014&format=json&per_page=1000:1 http://api.worldbank.org/countries/all/indicators/TX.VAL.MRC... Failed to load resource: the server responded with a status of 429 (Too Many Requests)' :-( the observablehq version is still working though: https://observablehq.com/@robinl/energy-usage-and-goods-imports-and-exports https://observablehq.com/@robinl/energy-usage-and-goods-impo...

gedy 6y ago

...which is also misleading because comparison is "per capita" which means very little to actual climate change, only absolute numbers (like China's) matter.

enitihas 6y ago
Per capita is what matters, absolute numbers don't make any sense. People consume resources per capita. Saying that if China was 10 different countries those countries would have 10x lower emission targets doesn't make sense. The per capita carbon emission of a US or another developed country citizen is much higher than that of developing countries like India. Staying in a smaller country by population shouldn't be a blanket license to emit more carbon per capita.
- 7952 6y ago
  China has a moral obligation to reduce emissions because of high absolute values. America has a moral obligation because of high per-capita values.
  - Zhyl 6y ago
    Absolutely. High absolute indicates a lot of damage and should be reduced. High per-capita indicates a lot of excess and/or waste, which should be reduced.
  - joshuaissac 6y ago
    America has high absolute values, as well, and is ranked second. While its carbon emissions are only just over half of China's, they are also more than double that of India in third place, and comprise around 15% of total global emissions (based on 2018 data).
- bad_user 6y ago
  While I agree, large population densities happen due to poverty, the more poor people get, the more children they'll have. Western countries have lower population densities than many Asian countries. On one hand these are richer countries that maybe could afford the bill. On the other hand this is also a tax for having a lower birth rate that could have unintended consequences. Like raising poverty levels, or pro-imigration or pro-child policies. With enough economic incentive to grow the population, the population will be grown via government policies, exactly what happened in many countries post WW2. The other issue I'm seeing is that developed countries export a lot of goods and services, being efficient at it. Just as an example, agriculture in Holland is extremely efficient. Raising prices in Holland due to CO₂ emissions will move some of that production locally elsewhere in the EU, possibly yielding greater CO₂ emissions overall. This may be good for local farmers, I'm all for eating produce grown locally, but not necessarily for the environment. Basically some countries are exporting much of their pollution and by imposing limits per country some of that pollution might get worse when moved locally. I agree that "per capita" is probably the best we have, it's unfair to impose harsher restrictions on developing countries, given that developed countries yielded much worse emissions in the 20th century. Since 1960 we've had great progress in eliminating extreme poverty across the world. If that progress continues, we can expect a flattening population level, which is already happening. But in calculating allowed emissions per country, it isn't so clear cut and I hope all variables are taken into consideration.
adrianN 6y ago
And if we divide the world into 7 billion countries, nobody needs to do anything, right?
- gedy 6y ago
  Point is more that we need to do something about China, no matter the "per capita" distraction: https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2018/07/01/china-emits-more-carbon-dioxide-than-the-u-s-and-eu-combined/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2018/07/01/china-emits-...
  - jbay808 6y ago
    Point is more that if a successful separatist movement in China, which just redraws borders without closing any power plants, is all it takes to turn that reasoning into "we need to do something about USA", then it seems like a wonky measurement. A measurement that says China is the problem but not Huabei, Dongbei, Huadong, Zhongnan, Xinan, or Xibei, is wonky. A measurement that says the EU emits too much carbon but France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece, and Poland don't, is also wonky. If you start from a premise that each human has an equal right to emit carbon as any other, regardless of which country they're born in, then you naturally get per-capita measures as a result. An absolute measure implies that each country has an equal right to emit carbon, but since countries are fluid and artificial constructs, that results in some pretty weird consequences, like each person in Britain being allowed to burn more gasoline if Scotland leaves the UK. Growing up in times of stability it might seem like countries are concrete and unchangeable, but borders move and countries appear and disappear all the time, and an international law that only applied to the top emitter would likely be enough pressure to cause that country to redefine itself as an informal federation of multiple states.
UncleMeat 6y ago
Using this argument we could split the world into “China” and “not China”. Suddenly, China is dwarfed by “not China” and no longer matters!

jandrewrogers 6y ago

The US has a large per capita CO2 footprint that could be significantly reduced, but CO2 production is correlated with GDP and the US has a significantly higher GDP per capita than Europe. Countries that produce more per capita also use more energy per capita on average, which makes sense. Transportation in the US will have a larger CO2 footprint than other countries for a very long time simply by virtue of size and geographic population dispersion. Similarly, the vast herds of ungulates aren't going away no matter what we do with agriculture, it is a critical and natural part of the North American ecosystem. What constitutes a reasonable CO2 footprint per capita has a significant dependency on local conditions. Some regions have intrinsically higher CO2 footprints than others, ceterus paribus. In a world where everyone is trying to optimize for CO2 footprint (not the case today), a fair result will still have large differences across regions.

cheerlessbog 6y ago
> Similarly, the vast herds of ungulates aren't going away no matter what we do with agriculture, it is a critical and natural part of the North American ecosystem. You don’t mean the 95 million cattle of the US meat and milk industry? Those are very unnatural, and a significant contribution to AGW.
- jandrewrogers 6y ago
  North America had 60 million bison before they were replaced with cattle. The necessity of having vast herds of large ungulates in western North America to prevent ecosystem collapse is well understood. If we stopped raising cattle, we'd have to replace them with bison, which have a similar footprint. It may be a smaller herd, but it will be a very large herd nonetheless. That aside, at no point in the foreseeable future will people stop eating meat and dairy, so total elimination is a bit of a moot point.
cmarschner 6y ago
Europe has shown in recent years that GDP growth can get decoupled from CO2 [1]. Also, it‘s not that the big emittors are poor countries - in the light of long-term survival, on could deal with lower GDPs than what many countries have today. It‘s just a matter of priorities. [1] eg https://qz.com/791865/climate-change-charting-the-extraordinary-decoupling-between-gdp-and-carbon-emissions/ https://qz.com/791865/climate-change-charting-the-extraordin...