5 ms·

Now do emissions per capita.

splithalf 5y ago
The climate doesn’t care about per capita though. If more than half of all coal plants are in China, then China needs to change if we have any hope of moving the needle. All the other countries can change but it won’t matter.
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  Some people are interested in carbon-accounting, others are interested in moral-accounting. What the moral accounters may not realize is that their accounting is rarely useful for solving problems, and is often actively harmful. The first step to making progress in many areas is to say "OK, let's forget about trying to find someone to blame".
  - ancientworldnow 5y ago
    Wrong. Carbon accounting suggests it's easier to make cuts in the people who are using the most as they have far more fat to trim and you can get dramatically greater reductions in environmental damage with much smaller impact to overall. standard of living This is both the moral and practical solution, it's just not what people want to hear.
    - rsj_hn 5y ago
      Well, good luck with that.
    - josephcsible 5y ago
      No it doesn't. The problem is that there aren't enough "people who are using the most" to make any substantial difference. This is the same flaw in the argument that we should fix inequality in America by just taking 90% of the billionaires' money: we'd run out of billionaires after only paying a few months' rent for everyone.
- Udik 5y ago
  > The climate doesn’t care about per capita though The climate doesn't care for borders and sovereignty either. "China" is just an arbitrary set of people and businesses- you could as well calculate the emissions of the US + Europe + Middle East, or that of companies with a name starting by a letter from a to k, or that of bald people. If you want to talk about responsibility, instead, then you need to take in account population, and there the US are much worse offenders.
  - perl4ever 5y ago
    Sure, we can divide people up into groups in any random way. But there's nothing fair about requiring people or groups to equalize their emissions, in general. If you drive a semi tractor trailer, and I drive a car, then we both may need to reduce our CO2 emissions, but equalizing them makes no sense if you in fact need to transport a lot more stuff than me. The whole reason you drive a truck that gets lousy mileage is because it's more efficient per pound of goods transported than if they were loaded into passenger cars. If we want to reduce global CO2 emissions, then the only rational and reasonable way to do it is to treat every kg of CO2 equally, and not get sidetracked into other notions of fairness. I'm aware that carbon taxes, cap and trade, etc. may have a lot of problems, it's just that the practical problems of doing the right thing don't change what the right thing is. Like the saying about looking for your keys under the streetlight when they aren't there.
  - josephcsible 5y ago
    The Chinese government is responsible for pollution that comes out of China. There's no entity responsible for pollution from names starting with a to k, or from bald people.
    - Udik 5y ago
      Ok, so let's blame China for being the largest emitter of co2. Then the problem would be solved by splitting China equally in two new countries, ChinaA and ChinaB, each with exactly half of the current population and factories and everything else unchanged. The emissions of each half would now be less than the emissions if the US, would you start blaming the US now for being the biggest emitter? Note that absolutely nothing would have changed in terms of pollution. It would make more sense to blame China for having such a high population density- four times that of the US. However, reducing the population is a pretty harsh demand, and in fairness China has already taken tough measures in this respect with the one child policy.
- bllguo 5y ago
  So America's done enough? With our lavish lifestyles, large suburban homes, one or more cars per household, eating out all the time, running the heater or AC half the year, unparalleled rates of consumption? All of that and yet we are supposed to be comfortable telling people in China one generation removed from levels of poverty Westerners could not even fathom: "no, no cheap electricity for you! You're the ones who need to sacrifice!"
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
throwkeep 5y ago
It's not the vital stat from the climate's perspective, but: 1. Qatar 2. Kuwait 3. UAE 4. Saudi Arabia 5. Luxembourg 6. Australia 7. USA 8. Canada 9. Estonia 10. Kazakhstan https://www.statista.com/chart/20903/countries-emitting-most-co2-per-capita/ https://www.statista.com/chart/20903/countries-emitting-most...
MikeUt 5y ago
Why? We are told that having a child is the most environmentally damaging decision one could make [1,2,3,4]. And the developed world already has sub-replacement fertility - for about half a century now. But that counts for nothing? [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-to-fight-climate-change-have-fewer-children https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-to-... [2] https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/science-proves-kids-are-bad-earth-morality-suggests-we-stop-ncna820781 https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/science-proves-kids-ar... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/20/give-up-having-children-couples-save-planet-climate-crisis https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/20/give-up-having... [4] https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/07/14/having-kids-is-terrible-for-the-environment-so-im-not-having-any/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/07/14/...
- amanaplanacanal 5y ago
  China has sub-replacement fertility too.
  - MikeUt 5y ago
    Today. But it had much higher fertility in the past, even relative to other countries back then: https://img.caixin.com/2018-09-13/1536823492774171.jpg https://img.caixin.com/2018-09-13/1536823492774171.jpg Fertility at a single moment in time is meaningless, which is why you look at the total population.
g8oz 5y ago
Here an interesting data point: Bangladesh vs Denmark + Norway. A population of 163 million for the former vs a combined 11 million for the latter. And yet total consumption based CO2 emissions are about equivalent. It's even worse when you look at production based emissions. Bangladesh emits less than half the total of CO2 vs Norway + Denmark. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_... Per capita resource consumption dominates raw population to a surprisingly large extent.

The climate doesn’t care about per capita though. If more than half of all coal plants are in China, then China needs to change if we have any hope of moving the needle. All the other countries can change but it won’t matter.

rsj_hn 5y ago
Some people are interested in carbon-accounting, others are interested in moral-accounting. What the moral accounters may not realize is that their accounting is rarely useful for solving problems, and is often actively harmful. The first step to making progress in many areas is to say "OK, let's forget about trying to find someone to blame".
- ancientworldnow 5y ago
  Wrong. Carbon accounting suggests it's easier to make cuts in the people who are using the most as they have far more fat to trim and you can get dramatically greater reductions in environmental damage with much smaller impact to overall. standard of living This is both the moral and practical solution, it's just not what people want to hear.
  - rsj_hn 5y ago
    Well, good luck with that.
  - josephcsible 5y ago
    No it doesn't. The problem is that there aren't enough "people who are using the most" to make any substantial difference. This is the same flaw in the argument that we should fix inequality in America by just taking 90% of the billionaires' money: we'd run out of billionaires after only paying a few months' rent for everyone.
Udik 5y ago
> The climate doesn’t care about per capita though The climate doesn't care for borders and sovereignty either. "China" is just an arbitrary set of people and businesses- you could as well calculate the emissions of the US + Europe + Middle East, or that of companies with a name starting by a letter from a to k, or that of bald people. If you want to talk about responsibility, instead, then you need to take in account population, and there the US are much worse offenders.
- perl4ever 5y ago
  Sure, we can divide people up into groups in any random way. But there's nothing fair about requiring people or groups to equalize their emissions, in general. If you drive a semi tractor trailer, and I drive a car, then we both may need to reduce our CO2 emissions, but equalizing them makes no sense if you in fact need to transport a lot more stuff than me. The whole reason you drive a truck that gets lousy mileage is because it's more efficient per pound of goods transported than if they were loaded into passenger cars. If we want to reduce global CO2 emissions, then the only rational and reasonable way to do it is to treat every kg of CO2 equally, and not get sidetracked into other notions of fairness. I'm aware that carbon taxes, cap and trade, etc. may have a lot of problems, it's just that the practical problems of doing the right thing don't change what the right thing is. Like the saying about looking for your keys under the streetlight when they aren't there.
- josephcsible 5y ago
  The Chinese government is responsible for pollution that comes out of China. There's no entity responsible for pollution from names starting with a to k, or from bald people.
  - Udik 5y ago
    Ok, so let's blame China for being the largest emitter of co2. Then the problem would be solved by splitting China equally in two new countries, ChinaA and ChinaB, each with exactly half of the current population and factories and everything else unchanged. The emissions of each half would now be less than the emissions if the US, would you start blaming the US now for being the biggest emitter? Note that absolutely nothing would have changed in terms of pollution. It would make more sense to blame China for having such a high population density- four times that of the US. However, reducing the population is a pretty harsh demand, and in fairness China has already taken tough measures in this respect with the one child policy.
bllguo 5y ago
So America's done enough? With our lavish lifestyles, large suburban homes, one or more cars per household, eating out all the time, running the heater or AC half the year, unparalleled rates of consumption? All of that and yet we are supposed to be comfortable telling people in China one generation removed from levels of poverty Westerners could not even fathom: "no, no cheap electricity for you! You're the ones who need to sacrifice!"
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

throwkeep 5y ago

It's not the vital stat from the climate's perspective, but: 1. Qatar 2. Kuwait 3. UAE 4. Saudi Arabia 5. Luxembourg 6. Australia 7. USA 8. Canada 9. Estonia 10. Kazakhstan https://www.statista.com/chart/20903/countries-emitting-most-co2-per-capita/ https://www.statista.com/chart/20903/countries-emitting-most...

MikeUt 5y ago

Why? We are told that having a child is the most environmentally damaging decision one could make [1,2,3,4]. And the developed world already has sub-replacement fertility - for about half a century now. But that counts for nothing? [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-to-fight-climate-change-have-fewer-children https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-to-... [2] https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/science-proves-kids-are-bad-earth-morality-suggests-we-stop-ncna820781 https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/science-proves-kids-ar... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/20/give-up-having-children-couples-save-planet-climate-crisis https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/20/give-up-having... [4] https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/07/14/having-kids-is-terrible-for-the-environment-so-im-not-having-any/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/07/14/...

amanaplanacanal 5y ago
China has sub-replacement fertility too.
- MikeUt 5y ago
  Today. But it had much higher fertility in the past, even relative to other countries back then: https://img.caixin.com/2018-09-13/1536823492774171.jpg https://img.caixin.com/2018-09-13/1536823492774171.jpg Fertility at a single moment in time is meaningless, which is why you look at the total population.

g8oz 5y ago

Here an interesting data point: Bangladesh vs Denmark + Norway. A population of 163 million for the former vs a combined 11 million for the latter. And yet total consumption based CO2 emissions are about equivalent. It's even worse when you look at production based emissions. Bangladesh emits less than half the total of CO2 vs Norway + Denmark. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_... Per capita resource consumption dominates raw population to a surprisingly large extent.