6 ms·

Does that mean they are going to push Europeans even harder, and do nothing to countries which are the real culprit?

by a5c11 2y ago

lm28469 2y ago
Which countries?
pjc50 2y ago
The real culprits are at the top of https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-per-capita/ https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-pe... : gulf oil states, Australia, petrostate Canada, then the ones you'd expect like US and Russia.
- igg 2y ago
  This list seem to be based on production based accounting if emissions. Consumption-based per-capita emissions are available here for those curious: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-co2-per-capita?tab=chart https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-co2-per-capit...
  - _aavaa_ 2y ago
    Is there a version of this that isn’t per capita? The environment cares about absolute amounts not per capita amounts.
    - throawayonthe 2y ago
      absolute amounts of emissions by country is an arbitrary division, more people = more (demand for) industrial activity; for the numbers to be useful and actionable, they need to be understood in the context of the people those emissions are for, no?
      - meany 2y ago
        Doesn’t that assume that the production isn’t for export. For instance, if the EU and US export their industries to low wage, high population countries you would see their per capita numbers drop and overall leveling out. However, the damage to the climate would be equal. Essentially, you need to look at a lot of factors and think holistically about the problem.
        _aavaa_ 2y ago
        No. The comment I replied to is about comsumption-based emissions, which attempt to account for exactly this. See the description in the link
      - _aavaa_ 2y ago
        At the end of the day, it's one ecosystem we all live it. It doesn't matter if the top polluter has 1 billion, 0.1 billion, or 10 billion people. The total amount of greenhouses gasses added to the atmosphere is too much. We all need to stop adding and then start removing. As for which metric to use, that depends on the argument you want to make. One can look at cumulative emissions and see how western nations have polluted much more historically, and should therefore do much more to clean up a mess their have contributed much more to. Their governments will retort: "Oh but we produce so little of current global emissions now, those other countries polluting more should change first".
        Timon3 2y ago
        But why are countries the best division? Why not continents, or unions of countries (e.g. EU or USA), or sub-country divisions like states, or even smaller regions? Countries don't have the highest possible impact on all people, that would probably be unions. It's also not the most direct impact, that would depend on each country, but for e.g. Germany that would be the individual states. The per-capita measurement allows you to directly and meaningfully compare any subdivision, while per-country isn't even meaningfully comparable with other per-country measurements.
        2y ago
    - comte7092 2y ago
      While your statement is fundamentally correct, the issue here is that people typically use these charts as an excuse to point the finger. The tension globally is between the west who has high per capita emissions, a long period of high emissions, and high living standards as compared to the global south who have a larger population and lower living standards and yet still high absolute levels of emissions. Telling China/india/et al that they’re the real problem is taken as “yeah we polluted for centuries to get rich but that’s all in the past, you need to stay poor in order to save the planet”. An alternative solution might be to have the west pay to help these countries develop more sustainably, but that’s met with anger by the rising nationalist elements. I mean even importing green tech from the global leader (China) is being resisted.
matthewmacleod 2y ago
Who is “they”?
- acadapter 2y ago
  I assume the unspecific "they" is a linguistic shortcut for "people in power"
toomuchtodo 2y ago
China is rapidly decarbonizing, India is right behind, it is the US you have to convince to move faster (coal plants are rapidly on their way out, but US consumers prefer ICE pickups over EVs, and LNG exports must be prevented and substitutes found [carbon footprint determined to be substantially higher than coal]). Europeans have, for the most part, done very well considering the carbon profile of everything west of Poland. But they also need to speed up the EV uptake, with domestic EU automakers pleading "it's too hard" while China eats their lunch. Norway shows they way here imho, as they have reached their 2025 deadline of only new EVs being sold. Battery manufacturing is needed, as much as possible, batteries are the future of anything not seasonal storage. We did not leave the stone age because we ran out of stone, but because we found something better. This applies to renewables, EVs, batteries, etc as well, the problem is mostly solved, it is a matter of making the machine go faster is all. We need enough low carbon energy to replace everything fossil today (account for the orders of magnitude efficiency gains versus thermal generation, so not a 1:1 replacement needed), future energy growth, and energy needed to sequester 100+ years of emitted carbon. The exponential growth of solar power will change the world - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40746617 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40746617 - June 2024 (the Earth collects enough solar radiation in less than an hour to power humanity for a year)
- KptMarchewa 2y ago
  > China is rapidly decarbonizing, India is right behind, it is the US you have to convince to move faster (coal plants are rapidly on their way out, but US consumers prefer ICE pickups over EVs, and LNG exports must be prevented and substitutes found [carbon footprint determined to be substantially higher than coal]). IDK, does not look that way: https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/china/ https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/china/ https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/india/ https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/india/ https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/usa/ https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/usa/ https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/eu/ https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/eu/ At best China will stay the same, India will increase emissions, meanwhile both US and EU emissions will significantly drop.
  - 2y ago
throawayonthe 2y ago
[dead]
hn1986 2y ago
Won't make a difference if the leaders (Trump) doing even believe in climate change.
- whamlastxmas 2y ago
  Trump believes in it despite some past assertions around the narrative around climate change being silly, which to be fair, can be at times. He does dismiss it too much though and clearly promotes corporate greed and profit for others over environmental issues

Does that mean they are going to push Europeans even harder, and do nothing to countries which are the real culprit?

by a5c11 2y ago

Does that mean they are going to push Europeans even harder, and do nothing to countries which are the real culprit?

lm28469 2y ago

Which countries?

pjc50 2y ago

The real culprits are at the top of https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-per-capita/ https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-pe... : gulf oil states, Australia, petrostate Canada, then the ones you'd expect like US and Russia.

igg 2y ago
This list seem to be based on production based accounting if emissions. Consumption-based per-capita emissions are available here for those curious: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-co2-per-capita?tab=chart https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-co2-per-capit...
- _aavaa_ 2y ago
  Is there a version of this that isn’t per capita? The environment cares about absolute amounts not per capita amounts.
  - throawayonthe 2y ago
    absolute amounts of emissions by country is an arbitrary division, more people = more (demand for) industrial activity; for the numbers to be useful and actionable, they need to be understood in the context of the people those emissions are for, no?
    - meany 2y ago
      Doesn’t that assume that the production isn’t for export. For instance, if the EU and US export their industries to low wage, high population countries you would see their per capita numbers drop and overall leveling out. However, the damage to the climate would be equal. Essentially, you need to look at a lot of factors and think holistically about the problem.
      - _aavaa_ 2y ago
        No. The comment I replied to is about comsumption-based emissions, which attempt to account for exactly this. See the description in the link
    - _aavaa_ 2y ago
      At the end of the day, it's one ecosystem we all live it. It doesn't matter if the top polluter has 1 billion, 0.1 billion, or 10 billion people. The total amount of greenhouses gasses added to the atmosphere is too much. We all need to stop adding and then start removing. As for which metric to use, that depends on the argument you want to make. One can look at cumulative emissions and see how western nations have polluted much more historically, and should therefore do much more to clean up a mess their have contributed much more to. Their governments will retort: "Oh but we produce so little of current global emissions now, those other countries polluting more should change first".
      - Timon3 2y ago
        But why are countries the best division? Why not continents, or unions of countries (e.g. EU or USA), or sub-country divisions like states, or even smaller regions? Countries don't have the highest possible impact on all people, that would probably be unions. It's also not the most direct impact, that would depend on each country, but for e.g. Germany that would be the individual states. The per-capita measurement allows you to directly and meaningfully compare any subdivision, while per-country isn't even meaningfully comparable with other per-country measurements.
        2y ago
  - comte7092 2y ago
    While your statement is fundamentally correct, the issue here is that people typically use these charts as an excuse to point the finger. The tension globally is between the west who has high per capita emissions, a long period of high emissions, and high living standards as compared to the global south who have a larger population and lower living standards and yet still high absolute levels of emissions. Telling China/india/et al that they’re the real problem is taken as “yeah we polluted for centuries to get rich but that’s all in the past, you need to stay poor in order to save the planet”. An alternative solution might be to have the west pay to help these countries develop more sustainably, but that’s met with anger by the rising nationalist elements. I mean even importing green tech from the global leader (China) is being resisted.

matthewmacleod 2y ago

Who is “they”?

acadapter 2y ago
I assume the unspecific "they" is a linguistic shortcut for "people in power"

toomuchtodo 2y ago

China is rapidly decarbonizing, India is right behind, it is the US you have to convince to move faster (coal plants are rapidly on their way out, but US consumers prefer ICE pickups over EVs, and LNG exports must be prevented and substitutes found [carbon footprint determined to be substantially higher than coal]). Europeans have, for the most part, done very well considering the carbon profile of everything west of Poland. But they also need to speed up the EV uptake, with domestic EU automakers pleading "it's too hard" while China eats their lunch. Norway shows they way here imho, as they have reached their 2025 deadline of only new EVs being sold. Battery manufacturing is needed, as much as possible, batteries are the future of anything not seasonal storage. We did not leave the stone age because we ran out of stone, but because we found something better. This applies to renewables, EVs, batteries, etc as well, the problem is mostly solved, it is a matter of making the machine go faster is all. We need enough low carbon energy to replace everything fossil today (account for the orders of magnitude efficiency gains versus thermal generation, so not a 1:1 replacement needed), future energy growth, and energy needed to sequester 100+ years of emitted carbon. The exponential growth of solar power will change the world - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40746617 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40746617 - June 2024 (the Earth collects enough solar radiation in less than an hour to power humanity for a year)

KptMarchewa 2y ago
> China is rapidly decarbonizing, India is right behind, it is the US you have to convince to move faster (coal plants are rapidly on their way out, but US consumers prefer ICE pickups over EVs, and LNG exports must be prevented and substitutes found [carbon footprint determined to be substantially higher than coal]). IDK, does not look that way: https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/china/ https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/china/ https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/india/ https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/india/ https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/usa/ https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/usa/ https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/eu/ https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/eu/ At best China will stay the same, India will increase emissions, meanwhile both US and EU emissions will significantly drop.
- 2y ago

throawayonthe 2y ago

[dead]

hn1986 2y ago

Won't make a difference if the leaders (Trump) doing even believe in climate change.

whamlastxmas 2y ago
Trump believes in it despite some past assertions around the narrative around climate change being silly, which to be fair, can be at times. He does dismiss it too much though and clearly promotes corporate greed and profit for others over environmental issues