8 ms·

Handful of cities driving urban greenhouse gas emissions

71 points by ilamont 5y ago

908B64B197 5y ago
Unsurprisingly, 23 out of 25 are in China. When you look at who's polluting and who's emissions are on an upward trajectory, there's one obvious country that's actively working against the environment. China's emissions aren't slowing down. Coal is incredibly cheap when there's no carbon tax or emission standards. One of the many reasons it's cheaper to manufacture in China and why North Americans and Europeans can't compete [0]. Comparing the US[1] and China[2], the US has: - Decreasing per capita emissions in the US starting in 1973 (-27%) - A decrease in the countries emission starting in 2007 (-13%) Meanwhile for the same period China has had - a 7x increase per capita since 1973 (+532%) - 48% increase for its global emissions since 2007 So it is possible to drastically reduce our carbon footprint thanks to innovation and smarter power generation. Time to add tariffs on goods produced by states who made the decision of going all-in on polluting power generation, and potentially apply immigration quotas to citizens of these countries. [0] 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... [1] https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/united-states https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/united-states [2] https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china
- bellyfullofbac 5y ago
  Aren't we as consumers in the West still addicted to cheap goods that this idealistic/extremist idea (immigration bans?!) will sadly not fly with the average consumer? And Tim Apple, etc, will just lobby the government to not implement your tariffs so those "2 years and they're junk" Airpods don't get more expensive...
- Server6 5y ago
  This is because the west has outsourced our manufacturing and therefore our emissions to China. We're all responsible for it, so don't just blame "the other". The world needs to reduce its emissions. A big part of this is putting pressure on China to act, and if they don't we need to think about moving manufacturing out of China to countries more willing to make green concessions.
  - nostromo 5y ago
    This is false. 90% of China's co2 emissions are for local consumption, not manufacturing. https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china
    - sudosysgen 5y ago
      Is that so? Your source doesn't show which percentage of energy is used for foreign production or to support foreign production
      - nostromo 5y ago
        It does. Reference "Consumption-based accounting: how do emissions compare when we adjust for trade?"
        sudosysgen 5y ago
        No, it doesn't. It accounts only for trade in emissions related to fossil fuels and cement use. It doesn't account for all of the supporting emissions needed to power a factory, just the cement needed to build that factory and the electricity needed to run it. The emissions for the infrastructure and transport aren't accounted properly. There is as of yet no solid data for this.
        nostromo 5y ago
        We can't have a productive conversation if you're not going to bother to read and understand the source. > Whilst China is a large CO2 emissions exporter, it is no longer a large emitter because it produces goods for the rest of the world. This was the case in the past, but today, even adjusted for trade, China now has a per capita footprint higher than the global average (which is 4.8 tonnes per capita in 2017).
        dwohnitmok 5y ago
- vkou 5y ago
  China also grew its GDP/capita ~100 times, and lifted ~800 million people out of poverty in that time period. The reality is that an urban person in China produces ~as many emissions as an urban person anywhere in the developed world, and has a ~similar material quality of life, in terms of goods consumed. They get paid less than their Western counterpart, but not by that much. These days, the median salary in Shanghai is ~$45,000. The median salary in Paris is ~$65,000. This isn't the 90s, the wage gap is not that large anymore.
  - jjeaff 5y ago
    What does a rural Chinese citizen make compared to their rural western counterpart?
    - vkou 5y ago
      Next to nothing. Rural China is still a developing country. Urban China is a developed one. It's worth noting that more people live in Urban China than in the entirety of the United States. (Again, a stark contrast to the 70s.)
- yaacov 5y ago
  What do immigration quotas have to do with anything? I think you’re just using this climate thing as an excuse for nativism.
- wombatmobile 5y ago
  If 70% of the emissions from Chinese manufacturers are attributable to the manufacture of products that are exported to consumers in America and Europe, who would you say is responsible for greenhouse gases - the Chinese manufacturers, or the American and European consumers? If your new tariffs caused Chinese manufactured goods to become less competitive, and resulted in the reversal of offshoring and the rebirth of American and European manufacturing, what would your tariffs have achieved?
  - jjeaff 5y ago
    The Chinese manufacturers. They are the ones responsible for their pollution. And the Chinese government who allows it. Just like drink manufacturers should be responsible for the plastic waste they produce.
    - elliekelly 5y ago
      So by that logic I could advertise coffee beans as handpicked by child slaves and you could buy my product completely guilt-free? I don’t think it’s functionally any different from arguing you aren’t a murderer simply because you’ve hired a hit man. Maybe you didn’t directly do the bad thing but you’ve paid someone to do the bad thing on you behalf. At a certain point isn’t financially supporting the bad-actor tantamount to supporting the bad action?
      - jjeaff 5y ago
        Yes, of course, supporting people or businesses doing bad things is bad. But the comment I was replying to seemed to imply that in fact, the company doing the bad thing was -not- to blame and those buying from them are. In addition, your scenario requires that consumers have full information. I can tell that a product is made in China by the label. I can't tell if they are dumping noxious chemicals into the river behind their facility. The company on the other hand, knows.
  - tshaddox 5y ago
    > what would your tariffs have achieved? Reducing emissions, presumably. Wasn't that the point?
- jeroenhd 5y ago
  Yet even with all that cheap coal power, Chinese emissions per capita are much lower than those of the USA, Canada or Australia. If course the majority of these cities are in China, they're some of the most densely populated areas on the planet, located in a country that is still developing its economy. It's true that the rise of new and old economies such as those of China or India are bad for the environment as billions of people reach the same levels of wealth, luxury and emissions the West has enjoyed for decades, but as the richest economies in the world, the Western bloc should really be at the forefront of green energy and pollution reduction. Yet today these countries still stand out at the top of the charts, together with (other) oil economies. China hasn't stood still either in the past few years, and despite its measures to combat smog and power shortages, will probably see an increase in emissions as more people get access to more technology. China clearly doesn't have the environment in mind, but neither does the US. You paint a picture of the US improving massively while China worsens, but neither country really cares about their emissions. If anything, the Trump administration was proof that (nearly) the majority of America doesn't want to reduce carbon emissions. Until China reaches the CO2 emissions per capita of the US, I don't think any comparison between the two is fair. Whether that's because of infinite growth on the Chinese side of the equation or because of long overdue carbon emission cuts from the American side doesn't matter.
  - wombatmobile 5y ago
    For Some In China's Middle Class, Pollution Is Spurring Action https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/03/02/518173670/for-some-in-chinas-middle-class-pollution-is-spurring-action https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/03/02/518173670/...
- wombatmobile 5y ago
  How China is driving global green shift in electric power sector https://reneweconomy.com.au/china-driving-global-green-shift-electric-power-sector-91284/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/china-driving-global-green-shift... The question arises: which country (or countries) has been driving this global green shift in electric power generation? The answer is clear as soon as we look at the comparable charts for China. We carried these charts in the earlier blog posting, but reproduce them here for ease of comparison. Chart 3 reveals that the proportion of China’s electric power capacity sourced from WWS rose from 20% in 2007 to 35% in 2017 (1H) – or a 15% swing in a decade. And the shift is of exactly the same form as the global shift revealed in the IEA data, making it an inescapable conclusion that China is the driver of the world trend.
- Permit 5y ago
  > - Decreasing per capita emissions in the US starting in 1973 (-27%) > - A decrease in the countries emission starting in- 2007 (-13%) > Meanwhile for the same period China has had > - a 7x increase per capita since 1973 (+532%) > - 48% increase for its global emissions since 2007 I can't help but read this and feel that you're deliberately leaving out the per-capita emissions of Americans vs. Chinese in favor of relative changes from 1973. China emits 8.12 tons of CO2 per-person[1]. The US emits 15.52 tons of CO2 per-person[2]. The US is the "unfair" emitter here. That said, the true "fair" emissions that an individual can have would be roughly 1.61 tons. [1] https://knoema.com/atlas/China/CO2-emissions-per-capita https://knoema.com/atlas/China/CO2-emissions-per-capita [2] https://knoema.com/atlas/United-States-of-America/CO2-emissions-per-capita https://knoema.com/atlas/United-States-of-America/CO2-emissi...
  - rory 5y ago
    The overall China number is a little funky because they still have 500M people in the countryside emitting very little. On a per capita basis, many Chinese metros are among the worst, as is much of the US (especially in the midwest and south), Canada, and Australia.
  - tzs 5y ago
    Another difference between China (and the EU) and the US is that China (and the EU) have fairly serious plans to address the issue. China plan is for emissions to peak in 2030 and then fall to reach net zero by 2060. They've just launched a big cap and trade system to support this. The EU's plan is to reach a 55% reduction by 2030 and net zero by 2050. They too are going for a cap and trade system, to launch by 2026. And the US? At the Federal level, we've got one major party that wants to do plans similar to the EU or China, and one major party that at best wants the government to do nothing and at worse wants to promote the increasing use of fossil fuels. Whenever the first party controls the House of Representative, the Senate, and the Presidency we can get Federal action on climate change. But whenever that party loses any one of those the other party can largely stop them from further action. When all three go to that party, they can even reverse prior actions. China has a very good chance of implementing their plan. The EU has a pretty good chance too. There is a good chance the US won't have a plan that can survive a party change for at least another generation.
- tshaddox 5y ago
  If China’s less strict emissions regulations are a significant subsidy on Chinese manufacturing exports, doesn’t that mean that the countries who establish stricter emissions regulations and import heavily from China are effectively just moving their emissions to China? It doesn’t seem like breaking down emissions by country is particularly meaningful in cases like this.
- renewiltord 5y ago
  Considering our primary assignment of value is not total carbon dumped but net change in carbon, the logical thing for any developing economy to do is to outrace all others in burning large amounts of fossil fuels and then cutting some percentage of them after some chosen threshold. Since we don’t care about area under the curve, or the current y axis value, but only slope, I would optimize for dumping mondo CO2 for the next 25 years and then spend the remainder of humanity’s time lecturing everyone else on why they haven’t cut as much as me.
- onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
  Fortunately, China's CO2 emissions haven't increased much - and possibly started to decrease - in the last 2 years. A hugely disproportionate amount of China's CO2 emissions (compared to the West) has been in construction [1]. China has built a mind-bogglingly insane amount of housing in the last 30 years - and given its population growth - it will not need to continue emitting CO2 for construction at this rate. China's second biggest source of emissions is Coal. This is becoming rapidly uneconomical in China. And unlike in the US, it doesn't seem like the special coal interests are given much consideration. This source of carbon will likely be 90% gone within 20 years. Finally - China does not have much oil, and seems to have very little interest in importing massive amounts of oil for cars. China is RAPIDLY moving to electric vehicles. And already, China uses much less CO2 per capita on transport than the West. If China is going to be a long-term problem on emissions - it's only because 22% of the world's population lives in China - and China is no longer poor. It's not going to be because Chinese people insist on driving gas powered vehicles everywhere and eating bacon 24/7. [1] https://chinapower.csis.org/china-greenhouse-gas-emissions/ https://chinapower.csis.org/china-greenhouse-gas-emissions/
  - analyst74 5y ago
    Exactly, gp's argument is quite sinister by choosing a timeframe from 1970s till now. US started cutting emission in 1970s, while China only started developing from an extremely impoverished, pre-industrial state that can barely feed its citizens. And despite standards of living in China still much lower than western countries, you can already see the reduction in per-capita emission since 2013, thanks to all the measures you mentioned.
    - whatthesmack 5y ago
      This ignores the nuance that 500m of China's population lives a poor life in the countryside and are not really contributors to China's massive CO2 emissions. If you look at folks living in or near cities, China's per-capita numbers outpace those of the US by a wide margin. In other words... China has more polluting behavior to correct per-capita where the polluting occurs than the US does.
- rory 5y ago
  This image seems to tell the story best: https://www.frontiersin.org/files/Articles/696381/frsc-03-696381-HTML/image_m/frsc-03-696381-g001.jpg https://www.frontiersin.org/files/Articles/696381/frsc-03-69... The per capita numbers in China are already big, but the biggest difference seems to be that there are a lot of people in those Chinese cities. Sidenote, looks like the study authors think Quebec City is in a developing country? Ouch.
  - 908B64B197 5y ago
    > Sidenote, looks like the study authors think Quebec City is in a developing country? Ouch. I laughed.
- notJim 5y ago
  If you want to play this fairness game, I don't think it comes out in the US's favor. The US alone has emitted 25% of the cumulative emissions up till this point, far beyond its share of population. Why is it China's job to sacrifice for the sake of our mess? Why did we get a 100-year head-start using cheap fossil fuels to develop our country and they don't? https://ourworldindata.org/contributed-most-global-co2 https://ourworldindata.org/contributed-most-global-co2 My point is, playing this blame game is not helping anything. It's a global problem, so we all have to contribute. The atmosphere does not know or care about national boundaries, so we need to do as much as possible. The fact is, America has high emissions per capita, and the resources and know-how to fix it.
- yongjik 5y ago
  China's GDP per capita in 1973 was $157, which was lower than North Korea. Of course, any country rising from such abject poverty will see drastic increase in energy usage. I'm not saying we should give China a free pass, but I believe the correct path is for the West (or whatever country you're in) to take initiative and reduce CO2, while using that as a leverage to pressure other nations. Too many arguments end up sounding like "Why should I do anything when $(country X) isn't doing its share?" I believe that's not productive. * Also, what's up with immigration quotas? You don't want more people to live in a society with more efficient energy usage (by your own admission)?
- somethoughts 5y ago
  It would be interesting to see if such information is made very publicly and broadly available with fanfare, whether nations would adopt a similar stance to it as they do the Olympics - where it becomes a source of national pride and glory to achieve higher than the benchmark. Perhaps some Gold Medal count for lowest emissions per capita is needed!
- MomoXenosaga 5y ago
  The West has outsourced pollution for a reason and that reason still exists.
pinewurst 5y ago
How long before (study co-author) Shaoqing Chen disappears?
- redleggedfrog 5y ago
  Who?
clairity 5y ago
the title is a bit misleading: > "23 Chinese cities - among them Shanghai, Beijing and Handan - along with Moscow and Tokyo accounted for 52% of the total [greenhouse gas emissions]" but admits that > "In per capita terms, however, emissions from cities in the richest parts of the world are still generally higher than those from urban centres in developing countries..." not only could you draw the mistaken conclusion that cities are pollution machines, but that china is the problem child, a double-whammy of subtle sensationalism. the west, and the US in particular, should be leading the fight against pollution, not just because it's the right thing to do for ourselves and future generations, but also because it's a geopolitical and economic lever. instead, our collective complacency and greed drives us to subtly blame developing countries stiving for parity with the west, rather than tackling the problem with economic might and wild abandon. instead it's another notch in the belt for capital misallocation.
- finiteseries 5y ago
  The only number that matters to the environment is the total. Every single western city could drop to 0 emissions, but those 23 Chinese cities along with Moscow and Tokyo already account for the majority of urban greenhouse gas emissions.
  - vkou 5y ago
    > The only number that matters to the environment is the total. The only number that matters to humans is the quota per capita. It's how we set policy. What is the per-capita carbon budget that you'd like to assign to the US, the EU, and to China? If those numbers are different, why? If they are the same, which region exceeds them, and by how much?
    - convolvatron 5y ago
      alot of people while maybe stating support for the notion of human equality would nonetheless have problems assigning the same amount of resources to everyone. after all, that would pretty much screw your lovely market
    - 5y ago
lbriner 5y ago
It is easy to feel powerless because "everyone else" is making it so much worse than me, why bother, but I prefer the adage "Don't curse the darkness, light a candle". There are obvious reasons why massive economies won't just replace factories etc. with cleaner tech so instead, those of us who really care should be developing the tech that drives this. Invent an amazing wind turbine or clean battery and let the Chinese and whoever else buy it up to clean up their country! This isn't just for pollution though. If you think that you can do policing/government/privacy/transport/whatever better then do it and let all the other countries copy you :-)
rmah 5y ago
How can we trust that study given that it was produced in China and in affiliation with a Chinese provincial government? /s
- revolvingocelot 5y ago
  I see the "/s", but the parent has a stealth point: presumably these emissions data are padded to look better (ie, less polluting) than they actually are. If VW could do it, China certainly could. ...I see happy downvotes, but I don't really see why. Don't we have very very recent evidence of Chinese provincial governments fucking around with official numbers in the form of 2019-2020 COVID stats? Don't we have recent evidence of Chinese interests ignoring agreed-upon international standards in the form of CFC emissions of the sort that everybody else managed to get out of their economic systems 30 years ago?
beervirus 5y ago
> almost all of them in China Shocker.
screye 5y ago
This article and the linked paper, rustle my jimmies. If there was a time to pull out one of my favorite quotes it is now; : "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics". - Sir Charles Dilke In per capita terms, however, emissions from cities in the richest parts of the world are still generally higher than those from urban centres in developing countries* So exactly the opposite of what the article's title is saying. I bet the emissions from smaller gas guzzler car-centric suburbs with non-scalable infrastructure are even higher. In terms of sectors, the GHG emissions from the stationary energy uses (such as residential, commercial, and industrial buildings) and transportation sector contributed the most* So cars continue to be the biggest contributor. Another point on the side of dense cities that can replace cars with public transport or biking/walking. https://www.frontiersin.org/files/Articles/696381/frsc-03-696381-HTML/image_m/frsc-03-696381-g001.jpg This grossly under labelled photo seems to point towards Atlanta, Charlotte, Denver, St. Louis, LA/SD and Perth as the biggest offenders in the developed world. All of which are famously car centric. i have no idea what is going on in melbourne. Its per capita commercial building costs are through the roof, especially for a place with such moderate weather. Chinese cities are remarkably inefficient on the surface, but most of their energy consumption seems to come from 'industrial buildings'. The primary course (paper) does not elaborate on what constitutes industrial buildings. https://www.frontiersin.org/files/Articles/696381/frsc-03-696381-HTML/image_m/frsc-03-696381-g004.jpg Another grossly under-labelled graph shows the standout cities in per-capita delta. (why is there no per capita graph for the bar chart, smh). Seattle has done remarkably well, probably due to massive increase in population (denominator goes up) and replacement of manufacturing (Boeing) with Tech. But that's just speculation on my side. I have no clue what is going on with Venice ? Reclamation efforts ? Houston also seems an odd excellent performer. I wonder if it is due to a fast increasing population that is mostly settling in condos in the city instead of suburbs on the outskirts. ___________ I disagree with the focus of the conclusions in the paper. My conclusion: 1. Road transportation is the main contributor to emissions in medium-large sized sparse cities. Instead of targeting per-capita efficient mega cities like Bangkok and Seoul without much head-room left, we should look at per-capita leaders like Atlanta, Perth and LA/SD to make improvements. 2. Someone needs to take a closer look at what China's 'industrial emissions' are. They are off the charts, and far outpace anything the rest of the world puts forth. 3. When people say : "The developing world's abuse of coal is causing huge emissions and the Paris climate accords don't address it'; they should say China and China exclusively. Other country's emissions are an order of magnitude off from Chinese cities at both absolute and per capita numbers. India's and SEA's cities are remarkably efficient. (probably due to underdevelopment, but still) (If this is due to the world exporting its manufacturing to China, then stringent trade laws on emissions will either lead to increased downstream prices in consuming countries or manufacturing will return to developed/greener countries due to cleaner infrastructure/tech. I am fine with both).
hikerclimber1 5y ago
I don’t believe this article.
neonate 5y ago
https://archive.is/djeab https://archive.is/djeab
antisthenes 5y ago
Cities are still far and away most efficient form of living/housing as far as emissions per capita go, compared to suburban sprawl or even townhouse-style settlements. How do these emissions look when normalized by density and economic output? Is there industry within city limits? Is it really a mystery that the largest cities in the world are also responsible for the largest emission outputs? Because this honestly sounds like a non-story by a journalist that doesn't understand per capita terms. Yes, we still haven't decoupled economic output from emissions. Yes, we need to tackle it. What's the proposed solution here? Not having cities? Really thought Reuters would have some editors or standards, rather than publishing sensationalist nothingburgers like this.
tonfreed 5y ago
Reminder that it's racist to point out that any climate action is going to need China onboard to actually achieve anything.
jka 5y ago
Select quote from the source research article[1]: "Stationary energy is one of the largest contributors to GHG emissions of cities, which includes emissions from the fuel combustion and electricity use in residential and institutional buildings, commercial buildings, and industrial buildings in the study. Nearly half of the 109 cities had stationary energy emissions that represented more than 70% of their total GHG emissions, and more than 80% of the cities had stationary energy emissions that represented over 50% of total emissions; therefore, most of these cities can achieve significant GHG reduction progress only if this portion of energy emissions can be well-controlled." [1] - https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsc.2021.696381/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsc.2021.69638...

71 points by ilamont 5y ago

Unsurprisingly, 23 out of 25 are in China. When you look at who's polluting and who's emissions are on an upward trajectory, there's one obvious country that's actively working against the environment. China's emissions aren't slowing down. Coal is incredibly cheap when there's no carbon tax or emission standards. One of the many reasons it's cheaper to manufacture in China and why North Americans and Europeans can't compete [0]. Comparing the US[1] and China[2], the US has: - Decreasing per capita emissions in the US starting in 1973 (-27%) - A decrease in the countries emission starting in 2007 (-13%) Meanwhile for the same period China has had - a 7x increase per capita since 1973 (+532%) - 48% increase for its global emissions since 2007 So it is possible to drastically reduce our carbon footprint thanks to innovation and smarter power generation. Time to add tariffs on goods produced by states who made the decision of going all-in on polluting power generation, and potentially apply immigration quotas to citizens of these countries. [0] 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... [1] https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/united-states https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/united-states [2] https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china

bellyfullofbac 5y ago
Aren't we as consumers in the West still addicted to cheap goods that this idealistic/extremist idea (immigration bans?!) will sadly not fly with the average consumer? And Tim Apple, etc, will just lobby the government to not implement your tariffs so those "2 years and they're junk" Airpods don't get more expensive...
Server6 5y ago
This is because the west has outsourced our manufacturing and therefore our emissions to China. We're all responsible for it, so don't just blame "the other". The world needs to reduce its emissions. A big part of this is putting pressure on China to act, and if they don't we need to think about moving manufacturing out of China to countries more willing to make green concessions.
- nostromo 5y ago
  This is false. 90% of China's co2 emissions are for local consumption, not manufacturing. https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    Is that so? Your source doesn't show which percentage of energy is used for foreign production or to support foreign production
    - nostromo 5y ago
      It does. Reference "Consumption-based accounting: how do emissions compare when we adjust for trade?"
      - sudosysgen 5y ago
        No, it doesn't. It accounts only for trade in emissions related to fossil fuels and cement use. It doesn't account for all of the supporting emissions needed to power a factory, just the cement needed to build that factory and the electricity needed to run it. The emissions for the infrastructure and transport aren't accounted properly. There is as of yet no solid data for this.
        nostromo 5y ago
        We can't have a productive conversation if you're not going to bother to read and understand the source. > Whilst China is a large CO2 emissions exporter, it is no longer a large emitter because it produces goods for the rest of the world. This was the case in the past, but today, even adjusted for trade, China now has a per capita footprint higher than the global average (which is 4.8 tonnes per capita in 2017).
        dwohnitmok 5y ago
vkou 5y ago
China also grew its GDP/capita ~100 times, and lifted ~800 million people out of poverty in that time period. The reality is that an urban person in China produces ~as many emissions as an urban person anywhere in the developed world, and has a ~similar material quality of life, in terms of goods consumed. They get paid less than their Western counterpart, but not by that much. These days, the median salary in Shanghai is ~$45,000. The median salary in Paris is ~$65,000. This isn't the 90s, the wage gap is not that large anymore.
- jjeaff 5y ago
  What does a rural Chinese citizen make compared to their rural western counterpart?
  - vkou 5y ago
    Next to nothing. Rural China is still a developing country. Urban China is a developed one. It's worth noting that more people live in Urban China than in the entirety of the United States. (Again, a stark contrast to the 70s.)
yaacov 5y ago
What do immigration quotas have to do with anything? I think you’re just using this climate thing as an excuse for nativism.
wombatmobile 5y ago
If 70% of the emissions from Chinese manufacturers are attributable to the manufacture of products that are exported to consumers in America and Europe, who would you say is responsible for greenhouse gases - the Chinese manufacturers, or the American and European consumers? If your new tariffs caused Chinese manufactured goods to become less competitive, and resulted in the reversal of offshoring and the rebirth of American and European manufacturing, what would your tariffs have achieved?
- jjeaff 5y ago
  The Chinese manufacturers. They are the ones responsible for their pollution. And the Chinese government who allows it. Just like drink manufacturers should be responsible for the plastic waste they produce.
  - elliekelly 5y ago
    So by that logic I could advertise coffee beans as handpicked by child slaves and you could buy my product completely guilt-free? I don’t think it’s functionally any different from arguing you aren’t a murderer simply because you’ve hired a hit man. Maybe you didn’t directly do the bad thing but you’ve paid someone to do the bad thing on you behalf. At a certain point isn’t financially supporting the bad-actor tantamount to supporting the bad action?
    - jjeaff 5y ago
      Yes, of course, supporting people or businesses doing bad things is bad. But the comment I was replying to seemed to imply that in fact, the company doing the bad thing was -not- to blame and those buying from them are. In addition, your scenario requires that consumers have full information. I can tell that a product is made in China by the label. I can't tell if they are dumping noxious chemicals into the river behind their facility. The company on the other hand, knows.
- tshaddox 5y ago
  > what would your tariffs have achieved? Reducing emissions, presumably. Wasn't that the point?
jeroenhd 5y ago
Yet even with all that cheap coal power, Chinese emissions per capita are much lower than those of the USA, Canada or Australia. If course the majority of these cities are in China, they're some of the most densely populated areas on the planet, located in a country that is still developing its economy. It's true that the rise of new and old economies such as those of China or India are bad for the environment as billions of people reach the same levels of wealth, luxury and emissions the West has enjoyed for decades, but as the richest economies in the world, the Western bloc should really be at the forefront of green energy and pollution reduction. Yet today these countries still stand out at the top of the charts, together with (other) oil economies. China hasn't stood still either in the past few years, and despite its measures to combat smog and power shortages, will probably see an increase in emissions as more people get access to more technology. China clearly doesn't have the environment in mind, but neither does the US. You paint a picture of the US improving massively while China worsens, but neither country really cares about their emissions. If anything, the Trump administration was proof that (nearly) the majority of America doesn't want to reduce carbon emissions. Until China reaches the CO2 emissions per capita of the US, I don't think any comparison between the two is fair. Whether that's because of infinite growth on the Chinese side of the equation or because of long overdue carbon emission cuts from the American side doesn't matter.
- wombatmobile 5y ago
  For Some In China's Middle Class, Pollution Is Spurring Action https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/03/02/518173670/for-some-in-chinas-middle-class-pollution-is-spurring-action https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/03/02/518173670/...
wombatmobile 5y ago
How China is driving global green shift in electric power sector https://reneweconomy.com.au/china-driving-global-green-shift-electric-power-sector-91284/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/china-driving-global-green-shift... The question arises: which country (or countries) has been driving this global green shift in electric power generation? The answer is clear as soon as we look at the comparable charts for China. We carried these charts in the earlier blog posting, but reproduce them here for ease of comparison. Chart 3 reveals that the proportion of China’s electric power capacity sourced from WWS rose from 20% in 2007 to 35% in 2017 (1H) – or a 15% swing in a decade. And the shift is of exactly the same form as the global shift revealed in the IEA data, making it an inescapable conclusion that China is the driver of the world trend.
Permit 5y ago
> - Decreasing per capita emissions in the US starting in 1973 (-27%) > - A decrease in the countries emission starting in- 2007 (-13%) > Meanwhile for the same period China has had > - a 7x increase per capita since 1973 (+532%) > - 48% increase for its global emissions since 2007 I can't help but read this and feel that you're deliberately leaving out the per-capita emissions of Americans vs. Chinese in favor of relative changes from 1973. China emits 8.12 tons of CO2 per-person[1]. The US emits 15.52 tons of CO2 per-person[2]. The US is the "unfair" emitter here. That said, the true "fair" emissions that an individual can have would be roughly 1.61 tons. [1] https://knoema.com/atlas/China/CO2-emissions-per-capita https://knoema.com/atlas/China/CO2-emissions-per-capita [2] https://knoema.com/atlas/United-States-of-America/CO2-emissions-per-capita https://knoema.com/atlas/United-States-of-America/CO2-emissi...
- rory 5y ago
  The overall China number is a little funky because they still have 500M people in the countryside emitting very little. On a per capita basis, many Chinese metros are among the worst, as is much of the US (especially in the midwest and south), Canada, and Australia.
- tzs 5y ago
  Another difference between China (and the EU) and the US is that China (and the EU) have fairly serious plans to address the issue. China plan is for emissions to peak in 2030 and then fall to reach net zero by 2060. They've just launched a big cap and trade system to support this. The EU's plan is to reach a 55% reduction by 2030 and net zero by 2050. They too are going for a cap and trade system, to launch by 2026. And the US? At the Federal level, we've got one major party that wants to do plans similar to the EU or China, and one major party that at best wants the government to do nothing and at worse wants to promote the increasing use of fossil fuels. Whenever the first party controls the House of Representative, the Senate, and the Presidency we can get Federal action on climate change. But whenever that party loses any one of those the other party can largely stop them from further action. When all three go to that party, they can even reverse prior actions. China has a very good chance of implementing their plan. The EU has a pretty good chance too. There is a good chance the US won't have a plan that can survive a party change for at least another generation.
tshaddox 5y ago
If China’s less strict emissions regulations are a significant subsidy on Chinese manufacturing exports, doesn’t that mean that the countries who establish stricter emissions regulations and import heavily from China are effectively just moving their emissions to China? It doesn’t seem like breaking down emissions by country is particularly meaningful in cases like this.
renewiltord 5y ago
Considering our primary assignment of value is not total carbon dumped but net change in carbon, the logical thing for any developing economy to do is to outrace all others in burning large amounts of fossil fuels and then cutting some percentage of them after some chosen threshold. Since we don’t care about area under the curve, or the current y axis value, but only slope, I would optimize for dumping mondo CO2 for the next 25 years and then spend the remainder of humanity’s time lecturing everyone else on why they haven’t cut as much as me.
onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
Fortunately, China's CO2 emissions haven't increased much - and possibly started to decrease - in the last 2 years. A hugely disproportionate amount of China's CO2 emissions (compared to the West) has been in construction [1]. China has built a mind-bogglingly insane amount of housing in the last 30 years - and given its population growth - it will not need to continue emitting CO2 for construction at this rate. China's second biggest source of emissions is Coal. This is becoming rapidly uneconomical in China. And unlike in the US, it doesn't seem like the special coal interests are given much consideration. This source of carbon will likely be 90% gone within 20 years. Finally - China does not have much oil, and seems to have very little interest in importing massive amounts of oil for cars. China is RAPIDLY moving to electric vehicles. And already, China uses much less CO2 per capita on transport than the West. If China is going to be a long-term problem on emissions - it's only because 22% of the world's population lives in China - and China is no longer poor. It's not going to be because Chinese people insist on driving gas powered vehicles everywhere and eating bacon 24/7. [1] https://chinapower.csis.org/china-greenhouse-gas-emissions/ https://chinapower.csis.org/china-greenhouse-gas-emissions/
- analyst74 5y ago
  Exactly, gp's argument is quite sinister by choosing a timeframe from 1970s till now. US started cutting emission in 1970s, while China only started developing from an extremely impoverished, pre-industrial state that can barely feed its citizens. And despite standards of living in China still much lower than western countries, you can already see the reduction in per-capita emission since 2013, thanks to all the measures you mentioned.
  - whatthesmack 5y ago
    This ignores the nuance that 500m of China's population lives a poor life in the countryside and are not really contributors to China's massive CO2 emissions. If you look at folks living in or near cities, China's per-capita numbers outpace those of the US by a wide margin. In other words... China has more polluting behavior to correct per-capita where the polluting occurs than the US does.
rory 5y ago
This image seems to tell the story best: https://www.frontiersin.org/files/Articles/696381/frsc-03-696381-HTML/image_m/frsc-03-696381-g001.jpg https://www.frontiersin.org/files/Articles/696381/frsc-03-69... The per capita numbers in China are already big, but the biggest difference seems to be that there are a lot of people in those Chinese cities. Sidenote, looks like the study authors think Quebec City is in a developing country? Ouch.
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  > Sidenote, looks like the study authors think Quebec City is in a developing country? Ouch. I laughed.
notJim 5y ago
If you want to play this fairness game, I don't think it comes out in the US's favor. The US alone has emitted 25% of the cumulative emissions up till this point, far beyond its share of population. Why is it China's job to sacrifice for the sake of our mess? Why did we get a 100-year head-start using cheap fossil fuels to develop our country and they don't? https://ourworldindata.org/contributed-most-global-co2 https://ourworldindata.org/contributed-most-global-co2 My point is, playing this blame game is not helping anything. It's a global problem, so we all have to contribute. The atmosphere does not know or care about national boundaries, so we need to do as much as possible. The fact is, America has high emissions per capita, and the resources and know-how to fix it.
yongjik 5y ago
China's GDP per capita in 1973 was $157, which was lower than North Korea. Of course, any country rising from such abject poverty will see drastic increase in energy usage. I'm not saying we should give China a free pass, but I believe the correct path is for the West (or whatever country you're in) to take initiative and reduce CO2, while using that as a leverage to pressure other nations. Too many arguments end up sounding like "Why should I do anything when $(country X) isn't doing its share?" I believe that's not productive. * Also, what's up with immigration quotas? You don't want more people to live in a society with more efficient energy usage (by your own admission)?
somethoughts 5y ago
It would be interesting to see if such information is made very publicly and broadly available with fanfare, whether nations would adopt a similar stance to it as they do the Olympics - where it becomes a source of national pride and glory to achieve higher than the benchmark. Perhaps some Gold Medal count for lowest emissions per capita is needed!
MomoXenosaga 5y ago
The West has outsourced pollution for a reason and that reason still exists.

pinewurst 5y ago

How long before (study co-author) Shaoqing Chen disappears?

redleggedfrog 5y ago
Who?

clairity 5y ago

the title is a bit misleading: > "23 Chinese cities - among them Shanghai, Beijing and Handan - along with Moscow and Tokyo accounted for 52% of the total [greenhouse gas emissions]" but admits that > "In per capita terms, however, emissions from cities in the richest parts of the world are still generally higher than those from urban centres in developing countries..." not only could you draw the mistaken conclusion that cities are pollution machines, but that china is the problem child, a double-whammy of subtle sensationalism. the west, and the US in particular, should be leading the fight against pollution, not just because it's the right thing to do for ourselves and future generations, but also because it's a geopolitical and economic lever. instead, our collective complacency and greed drives us to subtly blame developing countries stiving for parity with the west, rather than tackling the problem with economic might and wild abandon. instead it's another notch in the belt for capital misallocation.

finiteseries 5y ago
The only number that matters to the environment is the total. Every single western city could drop to 0 emissions, but those 23 Chinese cities along with Moscow and Tokyo already account for the majority of urban greenhouse gas emissions.
- vkou 5y ago
  > The only number that matters to the environment is the total. The only number that matters to humans is the quota per capita. It's how we set policy. What is the per-capita carbon budget that you'd like to assign to the US, the EU, and to China? If those numbers are different, why? If they are the same, which region exceeds them, and by how much?
  - convolvatron 5y ago
    alot of people while maybe stating support for the notion of human equality would nonetheless have problems assigning the same amount of resources to everyone. after all, that would pretty much screw your lovely market
  - 5y ago

lbriner 5y ago

It is easy to feel powerless because "everyone else" is making it so much worse than me, why bother, but I prefer the adage "Don't curse the darkness, light a candle". There are obvious reasons why massive economies won't just replace factories etc. with cleaner tech so instead, those of us who really care should be developing the tech that drives this. Invent an amazing wind turbine or clean battery and let the Chinese and whoever else buy it up to clean up their country! This isn't just for pollution though. If you think that you can do policing/government/privacy/transport/whatever better then do it and let all the other countries copy you :-)

rmah 5y ago

How can we trust that study given that it was produced in China and in affiliation with a Chinese provincial government? /s

revolvingocelot 5y ago
I see the "/s", but the parent has a stealth point: presumably these emissions data are padded to look better (ie, less polluting) than they actually are. If VW could do it, China certainly could. ...I see happy downvotes, but I don't really see why. Don't we have very very recent evidence of Chinese provincial governments fucking around with official numbers in the form of 2019-2020 COVID stats? Don't we have recent evidence of Chinese interests ignoring agreed-upon international standards in the form of CFC emissions of the sort that everybody else managed to get out of their economic systems 30 years ago?

beervirus 5y ago

> almost all of them in China Shocker.

screye 5y ago

This article and the linked paper, rustle my jimmies. If there was a time to pull out one of my favorite quotes it is now; : "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics". - Sir Charles Dilke In per capita terms, however, emissions from cities in the richest parts of the world are still generally higher than those from urban centres in developing countries* So exactly the opposite of what the article's title is saying. I bet the emissions from smaller gas guzzler car-centric suburbs with non-scalable infrastructure are even higher. In terms of sectors, the GHG emissions from the stationary energy uses (such as residential, commercial, and industrial buildings) and transportation sector contributed the most* So cars continue to be the biggest contributor. Another point on the side of dense cities that can replace cars with public transport or biking/walking. https://www.frontiersin.org/files/Articles/696381/frsc-03-696381-HTML/image_m/frsc-03-696381-g001.jpg This grossly under labelled photo seems to point towards Atlanta, Charlotte, Denver, St. Louis, LA/SD and Perth as the biggest offenders in the developed world. All of which are famously car centric. i have no idea what is going on in melbourne. Its per capita commercial building costs are through the roof, especially for a place with such moderate weather. Chinese cities are remarkably inefficient on the surface, but most of their energy consumption seems to come from 'industrial buildings'. The primary course (paper) does not elaborate on what constitutes industrial buildings. https://www.frontiersin.org/files/Articles/696381/frsc-03-696381-HTML/image_m/frsc-03-696381-g004.jpg Another grossly under-labelled graph shows the standout cities in per-capita delta. (why is there no per capita graph for the bar chart, smh). Seattle has done remarkably well, probably due to massive increase in population (denominator goes up) and replacement of manufacturing (Boeing) with Tech. But that's just speculation on my side. I have no clue what is going on with Venice ? Reclamation efforts ? Houston also seems an odd excellent performer. I wonder if it is due to a fast increasing population that is mostly settling in condos in the city instead of suburbs on the outskirts. ___________ I disagree with the focus of the conclusions in the paper. My conclusion: 1. Road transportation is the main contributor to emissions in medium-large sized sparse cities. Instead of targeting per-capita efficient mega cities like Bangkok and Seoul without much head-room left, we should look at per-capita leaders like Atlanta, Perth and LA/SD to make improvements. 2. Someone needs to take a closer look at what China's 'industrial emissions' are. They are off the charts, and far outpace anything the rest of the world puts forth. 3. When people say : "The developing world's abuse of coal is causing huge emissions and the Paris climate accords don't address it'; they should say China and China exclusively. Other country's emissions are an order of magnitude off from Chinese cities at both absolute and per capita numbers. India's and SEA's cities are remarkably efficient. (probably due to underdevelopment, but still) (If this is due to the world exporting its manufacturing to China, then stringent trade laws on emissions will either lead to increased downstream prices in consuming countries or manufacturing will return to developed/greener countries due to cleaner infrastructure/tech. I am fine with both).

hikerclimber1 5y ago

I don’t believe this article.

neonate 5y ago

https://archive.is/djeab https://archive.is/djeab

antisthenes 5y ago

Cities are still far and away most efficient form of living/housing as far as emissions per capita go, compared to suburban sprawl or even townhouse-style settlements. How do these emissions look when normalized by density and economic output? Is there industry within city limits? Is it really a mystery that the largest cities in the world are also responsible for the largest emission outputs? Because this honestly sounds like a non-story by a journalist that doesn't understand per capita terms. Yes, we still haven't decoupled economic output from emissions. Yes, we need to tackle it. What's the proposed solution here? Not having cities? Really thought Reuters would have some editors or standards, rather than publishing sensationalist nothingburgers like this.

tonfreed 5y ago

Reminder that it's racist to point out that any climate action is going to need China onboard to actually achieve anything.

jka 5y ago

Select quote from the source research article[1]: "Stationary energy is one of the largest contributors to GHG emissions of cities, which includes emissions from the fuel combustion and electricity use in residential and institutional buildings, commercial buildings, and industrial buildings in the study. Nearly half of the 109 cities had stationary energy emissions that represented more than 70% of their total GHG emissions, and more than 80% of the cities had stationary energy emissions that represented over 50% of total emissions; therefore, most of these cities can achieve significant GHG reduction progress only if this portion of energy emissions can be well-controlled." [1] - https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsc.2021.696381/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsc.2021.69638...