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The USA, India and China are all emitting carbon into the same atmosphere. Per capita is a useful metric in some contexts but not here. If china and india incr
by eldaisfish 3y ago
The USA, India and China are all emitting carbon into the same atmosphere. Per capita is a useful metric in some contexts but not here.
If china and india increase their coal energy generation to completely offset reductions in other regions, the reductions are rendered moot.
Speaking of leading by example, the USA’s carbon emissions are on track to see their most significant declines in history. The best part is that private industry is leading the push because the incentives are in place.
- matthewdgreen 3y agoPer-capita is absolutely a useful metric when you're asking other countries to take on a burden. When we ask developing nations to reduce their emissions, they rightly point out that this will harm their citizens' living standards. A very good response to this objection would be to prove that we can maintain US-quality living standards while emitting much less per-capita CO2 than China or India do today. Unfortunately (and despite some modest reductions) we're giving them exactly the opposite example, and they're making decisions accordingly.