3 ms·

Emissions per capita is only relevant if you want to assign moral blame rather than solve the problem. Canada and Australia are higher per capita than the US [

by xscott 5y ago

Emissions per capita is only relevant if you want to assign moral blame rather than solve the problem. Canada and Australia are higher per capita than the US [0], and you can demonize and crucify them all you want, but it doesn't stop more than 3% of the total problem. Similarly, you can send every person in the US back to the stone age, and you're still going to have about 80% of the problem unless you can get other countries to join along. [0] https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-by-country/ https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-by...

tsimionescu 5y ago
Edit: If every country on Earth had India's emissions per capita, we would be cutting global emissions to less than 25% of what they are today. Emissions per capita are relevant if you want to discuss a realistic expectation of how low a country's emissions can go. They are also directly relevant: every citizen of a country must be fed, must be given electricity, must use transportation, and must consume goods - each of these cost CO2 in quite direct proportion to the number of citizens. For example, China has a lot of room for improvement, but India does not, as it's already at lower emissions per capita than half the world (much lower than any EU country, for example). Global warming is not exclusively the problem of the global south. Poor people in China or India have the same rights to affordable electricity as people in Norway or Germany, which have higher emissions than China per person, despite the fact that they have outsourced plenty of emissions to China. Overall, if say we needed to reduce emissions by 50%, countries with higher emissions per capita will likely have to reduce MORE than that, as China and particularly India would incur much more harm to their hundreds of millions of citizens than Germany or the USA if they were to significantly reduce emissions.
- xscott 5y ago
  > Emissions per capita are relevant if [...] each of these cost CO2 in quite direct proportion to the number of citizens. Forgive the aggressive editing of your quote, but multiplying emissions per capita times the number of citizens is exactly emissions per country. > want to discuss a realistic expectation of how low a country's emissions can go Theoretically, most countries emissions could go to zero with nuclear, wind, solar, hydro, and/or geothermal. You can dive into the touchy feely stuff about people's quality of life, but it's easy to imagine a high quality of life in a country that went pure nuclear (zero added CO2). No new technology (battery storage) needed. However, if we're being realistic, you shouldn't expect any country to change much at all, and you'll find out how many people fear nuclear more than they fear fossil fuels. In the link I posted above there are 15 sovereign nations which produce a higher CO2 per capita than the US. (As an aside, several of those countries have a strong interest in selling oil, so you aren't likely to sway them.) If you treat per capita as the important metric, and you successfully convince those 15 countries to go pure solar/nuclear/whatever, you've solved less than 5% of the problem. Lock your heels and stick to your guns, refuse to admit you're wrong, but this is an inefficient approach. Contrast that with converting just China, the US, and India, to wind/geothermal/whatever and you've solved 50%.
  - tsimionescu 5y ago
    > Theoretically, most countries emissions could go to zero with nuclear, wind, solar, hydro, and/or geothermal. I think this is the bad assumption that is causing you to think emissions per capita are not important. Power generation is only a fraction of the problem. Most clearly, GHG emissions from cows and pigs will not go down even if all electricity energy is produced with 0 emissions. Incidentally, India's widespread vegetarianism may be a big component of how its emissions are so low. Then, transportation will not magically become electric even if the whole grid is green. Perhaps cars are a solved problem, but electric trucks, electric air planes, and electric cargo boats are definitely not solved problem, not for anywhere near today's costs. There are of course numerous other industrial processes which emit massive amounts of CO2 that can't be electrified at all - cement production, smelting, plastic recycling, many chemical processes etc. Also, new nuclear, hydro, solar, and wind are not competitive with already built coal or natural gas power plants - so moving to a new entirely green grid would massively increase the costs of electricity, which in turn will increase the costs of basically all consumer goods. And while many in the USA and Europe could afford to pay twice the price of electricity and all basic necessities (though nowhere close to all), few would in India or China. Now, would it be important and good to pressure and fund China, US and India to replace what they can of their electrical grids with nuclear and other green energies? Absolutely! But it only addresses a small part of the problem, and does so at tremendous cost. Edit: electricity generation accounts for ~50% of China's GHG emissions, ~35% of India's and ~25% of the US's. So even entirely greenifying their grids will not reduce world GHG emissions by anywhere near 50%.
    - xscott 5y ago
      Take your argument to its logical conclusion and maybe you'll see the contradiction: Qatar has the worst CO2 emissions per capita, so clearly that's where you should focus your efforts. > Also, new nuclear, hydro, solar, and wind are not competitive with already built coal or natural gas power plants [...] costs While this is completely true, if you stick to financial justification for changes, you aren't going to succeed anywhere. If any of the other methods were more cost effective in the short term, they'd already have switched. I doubt it's fruitful to talk about any of this. You seem pretty certain you're right, and I doubt I could change your mind on anything.

by xscott 5y ago

tsimionescu 5y ago

Edit: If every country on Earth had India's emissions per capita, we would be cutting global emissions to less than 25% of what they are today. Emissions per capita are relevant if you want to discuss a realistic expectation of how low a country's emissions can go. They are also directly relevant: every citizen of a country must be fed, must be given electricity, must use transportation, and must consume goods - each of these cost CO2 in quite direct proportion to the number of citizens. For example, China has a lot of room for improvement, but India does not, as it's already at lower emissions per capita than half the world (much lower than any EU country, for example). Global warming is not exclusively the problem of the global south. Poor people in China or India have the same rights to affordable electricity as people in Norway or Germany, which have higher emissions than China per person, despite the fact that they have outsourced plenty of emissions to China. Overall, if say we needed to reduce emissions by 50%, countries with higher emissions per capita will likely have to reduce MORE than that, as China and particularly India would incur much more harm to their hundreds of millions of citizens than Germany or the USA if they were to significantly reduce emissions.

xscott 5y ago
> Emissions per capita are relevant if [...] each of these cost CO2 in quite direct proportion to the number of citizens. Forgive the aggressive editing of your quote, but multiplying emissions per capita times the number of citizens is exactly emissions per country. > want to discuss a realistic expectation of how low a country's emissions can go Theoretically, most countries emissions could go to zero with nuclear, wind, solar, hydro, and/or geothermal. You can dive into the touchy feely stuff about people's quality of life, but it's easy to imagine a high quality of life in a country that went pure nuclear (zero added CO2). No new technology (battery storage) needed. However, if we're being realistic, you shouldn't expect any country to change much at all, and you'll find out how many people fear nuclear more than they fear fossil fuels. In the link I posted above there are 15 sovereign nations which produce a higher CO2 per capita than the US. (As an aside, several of those countries have a strong interest in selling oil, so you aren't likely to sway them.) If you treat per capita as the important metric, and you successfully convince those 15 countries to go pure solar/nuclear/whatever, you've solved less than 5% of the problem. Lock your heels and stick to your guns, refuse to admit you're wrong, but this is an inefficient approach. Contrast that with converting just China, the US, and India, to wind/geothermal/whatever and you've solved 50%.
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  > Theoretically, most countries emissions could go to zero with nuclear, wind, solar, hydro, and/or geothermal. I think this is the bad assumption that is causing you to think emissions per capita are not important. Power generation is only a fraction of the problem. Most clearly, GHG emissions from cows and pigs will not go down even if all electricity energy is produced with 0 emissions. Incidentally, India's widespread vegetarianism may be a big component of how its emissions are so low. Then, transportation will not magically become electric even if the whole grid is green. Perhaps cars are a solved problem, but electric trucks, electric air planes, and electric cargo boats are definitely not solved problem, not for anywhere near today's costs. There are of course numerous other industrial processes which emit massive amounts of CO2 that can't be electrified at all - cement production, smelting, plastic recycling, many chemical processes etc. Also, new nuclear, hydro, solar, and wind are not competitive with already built coal or natural gas power plants - so moving to a new entirely green grid would massively increase the costs of electricity, which in turn will increase the costs of basically all consumer goods. And while many in the USA and Europe could afford to pay twice the price of electricity and all basic necessities (though nowhere close to all), few would in India or China. Now, would it be important and good to pressure and fund China, US and India to replace what they can of their electrical grids with nuclear and other green energies? Absolutely! But it only addresses a small part of the problem, and does so at tremendous cost. Edit: electricity generation accounts for ~50% of China's GHG emissions, ~35% of India's and ~25% of the US's. So even entirely greenifying their grids will not reduce world GHG emissions by anywhere near 50%.
  - xscott 5y ago
    Take your argument to its logical conclusion and maybe you'll see the contradiction: Qatar has the worst CO2 emissions per capita, so clearly that's where you should focus your efforts. > Also, new nuclear, hydro, solar, and wind are not competitive with already built coal or natural gas power plants [...] costs While this is completely true, if you stick to financial justification for changes, you aren't going to succeed anywhere. If any of the other methods were more cost effective in the short term, they'd already have switched. I doubt it's fruitful to talk about any of this. You seem pretty certain you're right, and I doubt I could change your mind on anything.