5 ms·

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 co

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.
- JoeAltmaier 6y ago
  Poverty == children was true back in the 50's, but not so much any more. https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth#how-has-the-world-population-growth-rate-changed https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth#how-has-t...
  - bad_user 6y ago
    Not sure what you're trying to say. Both population growth and poverty have been plummeting since ~1960.
    - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
      Most countries have reached, or are reaching, < replacement population growth. So the poverty link seems to be dissolved.
      - s1artibartfast 6y ago
        How does that imply the link is dissolved? the decline of children mirrors the decline in poverty for the last 50 years and at record lows. If you look at countries, there are many differences, but high or low poverty, the correlation persists.
        JoeAltmaier 6y ago
        Everybody is at or approaching <2 children - under replacement. Everybody (but one or two outliers). Yet poverty is all over the map. So, what correlation?
        s1artibartfast 6y ago
        https://www.stlouisfed.org/~/media/blog/2016/december/blogimage_fertilityincome_121216.jpg?la=en https://www.stlouisfed.org/~/media/blog/2016/december/blogim...
        6y ago
fastball 6y ago
The earth doesn't care how many people are emitting. It cares about the absolute emissions. But obviously the earth is comprised of sovereign states, and in order to collaborate you often need to convince those sovereign states that treatment is fair. Given that, if you want to adjust emissions by some divisor, I'd adjust it by land area. Land area is finite on earth. That means that there is some value of CO2 output / m^2 that is sustainable for the planet. That number is consistent. That number applies globally. That number can be a target for everyone. It also can't be faked – some "unreliable" country can't say "hey, global body, you think our population is 1B but it's actually 1.2B, so we get to pollute more". You can't fudge land area like that (there might be some marginal ability to do so, but obviously it is less feasible than with per capita numbers). This has the additional benefit of aligning priorities against worsening conditions in order to incentivize action now. Global warming is causing rising sea levels, which in turn means that countries are losing land area. That means that every year that global warming worsens, your quota will actually decrease. Meanwhile, population is not finite. If you say to a country as part of an agreement to "get your CO2 output down to this level per capita", then it is a very real possibility that this country's population grows to an extent where that number you used last year is no longer small enough to stave off serious global warming. And that is the purpose of all this, no? Obviously carrots and sticks will be necessary for any agreement to be effective (until it gets really bad), but either way I think emissions/unit land area as the line in the sand makes more sense than emissions/per capita. An even better metric would probably be "emissions/unit arable farmland", as it gives weight to both land area and population, but obviously that is much more difficult to establish / less likely to stay static.
- pasabagi 6y ago
  This sounds very strange to me. Countries like Japan and Holland would be shafted, while countries like Russia could literally burn car tires all day. I think because of the vast differences in population density, quite a few countries would probably have to go to zero emissions, while others would have absolutely no reasonable limit. Australia, for instance, would probably have no limits under such a scheme.
  - 6y ago
gedy 6y ago
If per capita in the US matters that much, I'd expect the drop to be much larger than 8%, given that the country has largely shut down. 75% seems like a pipe dream in that case.
sitkack 6y ago
I would be interested in what the energy consumption spread is like over a region. Not trying to start a class war, but suburban or rural folks energy consumption (total, including manufactured goods, food, everything) vs urban, what is the base rate and then the somewhat optional delta on top of that. It feels like the leakage current of civilization is too high, at least for western economies in how much co2 they produce while not producing anything. Great if running at some rate, but they aren't clockless and can't scale down. Statically scheduled instead of dynamic.
belorn 6y ago
Per capita does not work if you got economic inequality. The portion of the population that are rich should not have a blanket license to burn tires all day long just because the same country also have a large part of population that is so poor that they can't afford to buy tires. Per capita also in theory create perverse incentives. A rich country with high pollution per capita could anex a poor country and magically reduce their per capita pollution. Having a bunch of people under the same rule, but separated and segregated, should not impact the responsibility of reducing carbon emission. If can't use absolute numbers since those benefits developed countries, and we can't use per capita since those benefits countries with large economic inequality, we will just have to find a third way to measure it.
pacala 6y ago
Number of people is what ultimately matters. The amount of CO2 per capita tends towards the same ballpark. Somewhere between 5-10 t/year/capita [0]. US, alas, is at 16t/year, though decreasing. Overall contribution: 330M * 16 = 5B t/year. Now let's watch how the 6 billion people that did not exist circa 1900 catch up in emissions with the high energy regimen that characterizes 'western middle class' lifestyle. Let's lowball at 5t/year/capita. Overall contribution: 6000M * 5 = 30B t/year. Earth as we know it will not survive that. And that's before we factor in that population is still booming, both globally and, through global migration, in US. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita?tab=chart&year=1805 https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita?t... [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/world-population-by-world-regions-post-1820 https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/world-population-by-world...
koheripbal 6y ago
Since we need money to combat climate change, then what really matters is per-unit of GDP. That also solves the unseen "import goods" CO2 emissions problem.

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.

JoeAltmaier 6y ago
Poverty == children was true back in the 50's, but not so much any more. https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth#how-has-the-world-population-growth-rate-changed https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth#how-has-t...
- bad_user 6y ago
  Not sure what you're trying to say. Both population growth and poverty have been plummeting since ~1960.
  - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
    Most countries have reached, or are reaching, < replacement population growth. So the poverty link seems to be dissolved.
    - s1artibartfast 6y ago
      How does that imply the link is dissolved? the decline of children mirrors the decline in poverty for the last 50 years and at record lows. If you look at countries, there are many differences, but high or low poverty, the correlation persists.
      - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
        Everybody is at or approaching <2 children - under replacement. Everybody (but one or two outliers). Yet poverty is all over the map. So, what correlation?
        s1artibartfast 6y ago
        https://www.stlouisfed.org/~/media/blog/2016/december/blogimage_fertilityincome_121216.jpg?la=en https://www.stlouisfed.org/~/media/blog/2016/december/blogim...
        6y ago

fastball 6y ago

The earth doesn't care how many people are emitting. It cares about the absolute emissions. But obviously the earth is comprised of sovereign states, and in order to collaborate you often need to convince those sovereign states that treatment is fair. Given that, if you want to adjust emissions by some divisor, I'd adjust it by land area. Land area is finite on earth. That means that there is some value of CO2 output / m^2 that is sustainable for the planet. That number is consistent. That number applies globally. That number can be a target for everyone. It also can't be faked – some "unreliable" country can't say "hey, global body, you think our population is 1B but it's actually 1.2B, so we get to pollute more". You can't fudge land area like that (there might be some marginal ability to do so, but obviously it is less feasible than with per capita numbers). This has the additional benefit of aligning priorities against worsening conditions in order to incentivize action now. Global warming is causing rising sea levels, which in turn means that countries are losing land area. That means that every year that global warming worsens, your quota will actually decrease. Meanwhile, population is not finite. If you say to a country as part of an agreement to "get your CO2 output down to this level per capita", then it is a very real possibility that this country's population grows to an extent where that number you used last year is no longer small enough to stave off serious global warming. And that is the purpose of all this, no? Obviously carrots and sticks will be necessary for any agreement to be effective (until it gets really bad), but either way I think emissions/unit land area as the line in the sand makes more sense than emissions/per capita. An even better metric would probably be "emissions/unit arable farmland", as it gives weight to both land area and population, but obviously that is much more difficult to establish / less likely to stay static.

pasabagi 6y ago
This sounds very strange to me. Countries like Japan and Holland would be shafted, while countries like Russia could literally burn car tires all day. I think because of the vast differences in population density, quite a few countries would probably have to go to zero emissions, while others would have absolutely no reasonable limit. Australia, for instance, would probably have no limits under such a scheme.
- 6y ago

gedy 6y ago

If per capita in the US matters that much, I'd expect the drop to be much larger than 8%, given that the country has largely shut down. 75% seems like a pipe dream in that case.

sitkack 6y ago

I would be interested in what the energy consumption spread is like over a region. Not trying to start a class war, but suburban or rural folks energy consumption (total, including manufactured goods, food, everything) vs urban, what is the base rate and then the somewhat optional delta on top of that. It feels like the leakage current of civilization is too high, at least for western economies in how much co2 they produce while not producing anything. Great if running at some rate, but they aren't clockless and can't scale down. Statically scheduled instead of dynamic.

belorn 6y ago

Per capita does not work if you got economic inequality. The portion of the population that are rich should not have a blanket license to burn tires all day long just because the same country also have a large part of population that is so poor that they can't afford to buy tires. Per capita also in theory create perverse incentives. A rich country with high pollution per capita could anex a poor country and magically reduce their per capita pollution. Having a bunch of people under the same rule, but separated and segregated, should not impact the responsibility of reducing carbon emission. If can't use absolute numbers since those benefits developed countries, and we can't use per capita since those benefits countries with large economic inequality, we will just have to find a third way to measure it.

pacala 6y ago

Number of people is what ultimately matters. The amount of CO2 per capita tends towards the same ballpark. Somewhere between 5-10 t/year/capita [0]. US, alas, is at 16t/year, though decreasing. Overall contribution: 330M * 16 = 5B t/year. Now let's watch how the 6 billion people that did not exist circa 1900 catch up in emissions with the high energy regimen that characterizes 'western middle class' lifestyle. Let's lowball at 5t/year/capita. Overall contribution: 6000M * 5 = 30B t/year. Earth as we know it will not survive that. And that's before we factor in that population is still booming, both globally and, through global migration, in US. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita?tab=chart&year=1805 https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita?t... [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/world-population-by-world-regions-post-1820 https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/world-population-by-world...

koheripbal 6y ago

Since we need money to combat climate change, then what really matters is per-unit of GDP. That also solves the unseen "import goods" CO2 emissions problem.