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“ China, the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, generates one thousand gigawatts of coal power domestically, accounting for over half of the globe's t

“ China, the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, generates one thousand gigawatts of coal power domestically, accounting for over half of the globe's total and more than four times that of the second- and third-largest users (India)” Sounds like a big problem

vkou 5y ago
China's per capita emissions are lower than the developed world [1], and most of India lives in absolute poverty. Are you advocating for each country receiving the exact same emissions cap, disregarding population? Or do you think its fair for billions of people to remain in absolute poverty, while a few hundred million in the developed world pollute four times more than their fair share? [1] Not to mention that much of the developed world's pollution is outsourced to China. Where do you think all the consumer goods you use are made?
- melling 5y ago
  Yes, 1.2 billion people need a lot of energy. India has another 1.3 billion. They’re going to need more power too. Coal? I agree that 340 million Americans need to reduce emissions. Coal is now 20% of electricity. We seem to be waiting for renewables and batteries. Globally, 40% of electricity comes from coal. At the end of the day, if we use all that coal for much longer, we are going to have a big problem
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    "Americans need to reduce emissions. Coal is now 20% of electricity." Currently each American produces twice the emission each Chinese or French does
  - vkou 5y ago
    > we are going to have a big problem Yes, we will. We need to tax the hell out of it, and tariff any country that does not institute an equivalent tax. But we'd rather grouse about foreign use of coal, rather than install a tax - because any such tax, at the moment, would hurt us[1] a lot more than it hurts them. [1] Well, some of us.
- vimy 5y ago
  You’re right, it’s not fair but at the same time climate doesn’t care about per capita. Also, 87 % of Chinese emissions are attributable to domestic needs and production. The only solution is geo-engineering and carbon capture. The Western world wants to lower emissions but it won’t matter because the majority comes from the developing world. And they want to keep growing, rightly so, negating the lower emissions from the West. Thus we are left with only technical solutions.
- tzs 5y ago
  This is the point where someone says that per capita isn't the right way to look at it because the atmosphere doesn't care about our arbitrary lines on the map. They will be correct that the atmosphere does not care about such lines, but that is why per capita is a much better measurement than per country. Suppose the total emissions the would can handle is T and there are C countries, and so the if you go by country fair share for each country is T/C. Suppose country X is having trouble staying under that. X can address that with a split into two countries, X1 and X2, carefully constructed so that half of what X emitted comes from each. Now each country's share is T/(C+1), and the X1 and X2 together have a limit of 2T/(C+1). The ratio of what X1 and X2 together are allowed to what X was allowed is 2C/(C+1). Current C is ~200, giving a ratio of 1.99. If X had split into X1, X2, and X3 they would each get T/(C+2), for a combined 3T/(C+2) and a ratio of 3C/(C+2) which presently is around 2.97. Split your high emission country into several smaller countries with the high emissions distributed approximately evenly between them, tie the countries together with trade agreements and various reciprocity treaties (kind of like the EU) and with no change in actual emissions you go from being over your quota for global emissions to being under. Of course everyone else can do this also. Every time someone does it the per country quota for everyone else goes down slightly. As high emitters environmentally gerrymander their way under quota, that will eventually cause some countries that were under quota to be over, pressuring them to also split. In the limit, you end up with something equivalent to per capita.
  - pksebben 5y ago
    Neither emissions / capita or emissions / country account for the interleaving of production and trade. On an atomic level (pardon the pun) we measure carbon by footprint - compare buying a new car vs buying a used car with worse gas mileage, and almost always the used car is the greener option (due to the astronomical carbon footprint of producing and shipping all the components of a new car). I have yet to see a measure of country level carbon that captures this reality - neither C / country or C / capita account for the fact that the global supply chain is deeply interdependent and extraordinarily convoluted. I almost feel as though the best solution would be Carbon / USD, or some other metric that captures the reality that it's neither countries or people creating carbon, but industry (the most relevant of which is currently multinational).
- varispeed 5y ago
  > Are you advocating for each country receiving the exact same emissions cap, disregarding population? I would advocate for Western corporations to move their factories back to their country of origin.

vkou 5y ago

China's per capita emissions are lower than the developed world [1], and most of India lives in absolute poverty. Are you advocating for each country receiving the exact same emissions cap, disregarding population? Or do you think its fair for billions of people to remain in absolute poverty, while a few hundred million in the developed world pollute four times more than their fair share? [1] Not to mention that much of the developed world's pollution is outsourced to China. Where do you think all the consumer goods you use are made?

melling 5y ago
Yes, 1.2 billion people need a lot of energy. India has another 1.3 billion. They’re going to need more power too. Coal? I agree that 340 million Americans need to reduce emissions. Coal is now 20% of electricity. We seem to be waiting for renewables and batteries. Globally, 40% of electricity comes from coal. At the end of the day, if we use all that coal for much longer, we are going to have a big problem
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  "Americans need to reduce emissions. Coal is now 20% of electricity." Currently each American produces twice the emission each Chinese or French does
- vkou 5y ago
  > we are going to have a big problem Yes, we will. We need to tax the hell out of it, and tariff any country that does not institute an equivalent tax. But we'd rather grouse about foreign use of coal, rather than install a tax - because any such tax, at the moment, would hurt us[1] a lot more than it hurts them. [1] Well, some of us.
vimy 5y ago
You’re right, it’s not fair but at the same time climate doesn’t care about per capita. Also, 87 % of Chinese emissions are attributable to domestic needs and production. The only solution is geo-engineering and carbon capture. The Western world wants to lower emissions but it won’t matter because the majority comes from the developing world. And they want to keep growing, rightly so, negating the lower emissions from the West. Thus we are left with only technical solutions.
tzs 5y ago
This is the point where someone says that per capita isn't the right way to look at it because the atmosphere doesn't care about our arbitrary lines on the map. They will be correct that the atmosphere does not care about such lines, but that is why per capita is a much better measurement than per country. Suppose the total emissions the would can handle is T and there are C countries, and so the if you go by country fair share for each country is T/C. Suppose country X is having trouble staying under that. X can address that with a split into two countries, X1 and X2, carefully constructed so that half of what X emitted comes from each. Now each country's share is T/(C+1), and the X1 and X2 together have a limit of 2T/(C+1). The ratio of what X1 and X2 together are allowed to what X was allowed is 2C/(C+1). Current C is ~200, giving a ratio of 1.99. If X had split into X1, X2, and X3 they would each get T/(C+2), for a combined 3T/(C+2) and a ratio of 3C/(C+2) which presently is around 2.97. Split your high emission country into several smaller countries with the high emissions distributed approximately evenly between them, tie the countries together with trade agreements and various reciprocity treaties (kind of like the EU) and with no change in actual emissions you go from being over your quota for global emissions to being under. Of course everyone else can do this also. Every time someone does it the per country quota for everyone else goes down slightly. As high emitters environmentally gerrymander their way under quota, that will eventually cause some countries that were under quota to be over, pressuring them to also split. In the limit, you end up with something equivalent to per capita.
- pksebben 5y ago
  Neither emissions / capita or emissions / country account for the interleaving of production and trade. On an atomic level (pardon the pun) we measure carbon by footprint - compare buying a new car vs buying a used car with worse gas mileage, and almost always the used car is the greener option (due to the astronomical carbon footprint of producing and shipping all the components of a new car). I have yet to see a measure of country level carbon that captures this reality - neither C / country or C / capita account for the fact that the global supply chain is deeply interdependent and extraordinarily convoluted. I almost feel as though the best solution would be Carbon / USD, or some other metric that captures the reality that it's neither countries or people creating carbon, but industry (the most relevant of which is currently multinational).
varispeed 5y ago
> Are you advocating for each country receiving the exact same emissions cap, disregarding population? I would advocate for Western corporations to move their factories back to their country of origin.