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US and EU emissions are down a quarter in the past 15 years. And world emissions have likely peaked (or at worst are in the process of doing so). If the world d

US and EU emissions are down a quarter in the past 15 years. And world emissions have likely peaked (or at worst are in the process of doing so). If the world does nothing more proactively, warming will be limited to less than 3C, based on best estimates. That's still bad for many people and places, but it's probably not world-ending bad. Governments taking further action will further mitigate the problem and might save places like Miami. That's the opportunity here that humanity isn't really taking advantage of.

vimy 4y ago
Before someone will counter with “we outsourced our emissions to China”, this is wrong. Even when we take this into account US and EU emissions have been dropping for years.
- aperson_hello 4y ago
  Exactly. And most of the emissions outsourcing happened in the 80s and 90s. If anything, there's been a move towards reshoring in recent years
- PheonixPharts 4y ago
  Care to post the citation for this claim? I've read plenty of papers on this but the ability to track "imported CO2" is fairly limited. The most obvious place that's usually missing in capital gained from foreign investments. If, in a hypothetical example, an investment firm make a billion dollars running a foreign oil company, then put that money into a US startup, this wouldn't count as "imported emissions", but clearly if you worked at that startup your job and all the money you spend would have come from exported emissions. The second place these studies tend to fail is how long of a trail of CO2 they follow. If one of the reasons it's cheaper to build a product in China is because the factory is closer to a carbon intensive raw material producer this not counted. If the energy to keep your low cost workers is cheaper and that's part of why they are low cost, that's not counted. It's not the fault of these reports that they can't track all of this, but it's not a great argument for green technology reducing emissions. If also doesn't matter if the US and EU reduce emissions, it matters if we do globaly. I can also promise you that if we forced China to reduce emissions we should feel that impact pretty dramatically in the west Economically. The best proxy globally to economic development is energy production, we live in a global economy, we all share that energy.
  - hihihihi1234 4y ago
    I too would like to read a citation and further details to support the claim.
  - aperson_hello 4y ago
    Here's the easy test: Add EU, US, and China emissions together. Since ~2011, that number has been going down.

vimy 4y ago

Before someone will counter with “we outsourced our emissions to China”, this is wrong. Even when we take this into account US and EU emissions have been dropping for years.

aperson_hello 4y ago
Exactly. And most of the emissions outsourcing happened in the 80s and 90s. If anything, there's been a move towards reshoring in recent years
PheonixPharts 4y ago
Care to post the citation for this claim? I've read plenty of papers on this but the ability to track "imported CO2" is fairly limited. The most obvious place that's usually missing in capital gained from foreign investments. If, in a hypothetical example, an investment firm make a billion dollars running a foreign oil company, then put that money into a US startup, this wouldn't count as "imported emissions", but clearly if you worked at that startup your job and all the money you spend would have come from exported emissions. The second place these studies tend to fail is how long of a trail of CO2 they follow. If one of the reasons it's cheaper to build a product in China is because the factory is closer to a carbon intensive raw material producer this not counted. If the energy to keep your low cost workers is cheaper and that's part of why they are low cost, that's not counted. It's not the fault of these reports that they can't track all of this, but it's not a great argument for green technology reducing emissions. If also doesn't matter if the US and EU reduce emissions, it matters if we do globaly. I can also promise you that if we forced China to reduce emissions we should feel that impact pretty dramatically in the west Economically. The best proxy globally to economic development is energy production, we live in a global economy, we all share that energy.
- hihihihi1234 4y ago
  I too would like to read a citation and further details to support the claim.
- aperson_hello 4y ago
  Here's the easy test: Add EU, US, and China emissions together. Since ~2011, that number has been going down.