5 ms·

What about cumulative emissions?

• actionfromafar 3y ago
  What about them?
  • xtian 3y ago
    Everyone who talks about China’s “horrible” emissions always avoids referencing cumulative, per capita, or, even worse, cumulative per capita numbers because they really interfere with the desired narrative.
    • actionfromafar 3y ago
      The desired narrative to me, is to avoid cooking this planet. If you want to cook it because it's otherwise unfair to China, fine, it's your funeral too.
      • xtian 3y ago
        I’m no longer moved by the linguistic arms race to describe the outputs of unproven computer models in ever more extreme terms. Are you educated on Chinese policy in this area?
      • foverzar 3y ago
        It's not about China. You don't even realize how you look, do you? Do you understand that everyone around the world remembers how western countries pioneered globalization and pushed all the nasty production to third-world countries, so that they don't get their white hand dirty? You don't get to greenwash yourselves just because stuff you consume gets produced somewhere else, got it? But hey, I have an idea! If you insist on being no less virtuous then Mother Teresa, how about this proposal: we shut down all of the outsourced production for US and Europe. Just think of it, this would be a huge optimization: it's the smallest part of the world that consumes the most. And people there are clearly eager to be heroes and show us how to take care of climate - let's help them finally put their money where their mouth is. It's a win-win!
        • actionfromafar 3y ago
          That sounds great actually.
        • jnsaff2 3y ago
          Don't you remember that your dear lenin was a strong proponent of globalization? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_International https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_International
          • foverzar 3y ago
            > your dear lenin Are you hearing voices? Stop assuming dichotomy and making up stuff every time someone criticizes you on practical specific things.
            • jnsaff2 3y ago
              > everyone around the world > western countries > globalization > all the nasty production > third-world countries > white hand > greenwash > stuff > somewhere else Practical of specific is which one of those? Your words, not mine.
              • foverzar 3y ago
                Do you have a point?
          • xtian 3y ago
            You are only proving your ignorance to anyone who knows what those two terms mean
    • throwawaylinux 3y ago
      You are the one trying to shift the narrative. I said nothing about per capita or not. I said emission intensity of production. That is a better metric IMO because it doesn't incentivize environmentally destructive population increase or excuse total emissions. It's basically the carbon efficiency of creating value. It's not perfect, every situation is a bit different, but China is such a dirty outlier compared with other major economies and the world that you can't handwave it away - https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/co2-emissions-intensity-of-gdp-1990-2021 https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/co2-emissions... Producing something in China versus most other places means emitting more carbon.
      • xtian 3y ago
        “environmentally destructive population increase” - Wow, that’s one I didn’t expect to hear openly so soon.
        • deleted 3y ago
          [deleted]
        • throwawaylinux 3y ago
          So you have no real argument.
          • xtian 3y ago
            Has it occurred to you that most other places make barely any manufactured goods at all compared to China? Particularly basic materials like steel. How do you factor that into your calculations? The US will look pretty good on your chosen metric because our primary exports are soybeans, credit, and IP. But it doesn’t matter regardless because any attempt to impose authoritarian climate measures on China will send the West into economic crisis, one way or another.
            • throwawaylinux 3y ago
              > Has it occurred to you that most other places make barely any manufactured goods at all compared to China? Particularly basic materials like steel. How do you factor that into your calculations? China looks terrible compared to almost all other significant economies. When fundamentals like electricity production are much dirtier, you don't need to look much further downstream. > But it doesn’t matter regardless What "doesn't matter"? > because any attempt to impose authoritarian climate measures on China will send the West into economic crisis, one way or another. International terms of trade can not be "authoritarian", by definition. That's an ironic misunderstanding: if you want authoritarian look no further than the communist dictatorship ruling the country.
  • YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago
    I believe the OP is referring to historical contribution to climate change by different countries. There's an article about this on Our World In Data: Who has contributed most to global CO2 emissions? >> There’s not only significant variability in how much CO2 countries emit across the world today. There are also large differences in how much each has emitted in the past. Who has contributed most to global CO2 since 1750? https://ourworldindata.org/contributed-most-global-co2 https://ourworldindata.org/contributed-most-global-co2 The graph at the top of the article makes it clear that, historically, the regions that have contributed the most to climate change (to make it plain: the countries directly responsible for it) are the US and the EU countries. The US alone has contributed as much CO2 as all Asian countries together. That doesn't mean Asia will suffer less than anyone else from a changing climate, but pointing the finger at China as the biggest polluter is kind of missing the point, and probably an attempt to deflect responsibility to avoid doing what must be done (edit: not by you, obviously).