3 ms·
The planet doesn't care about arbitrary lines humans draw on their maps. It just cares about the worldwide total emissions. Unless you can make a good argument
by tzs 1y ago
The planet doesn't care about arbitrary lines humans draw on their maps. It just cares about the worldwide total emissions.
Unless you can make a good argument that some humans have a natural or divine right to a bigger share of whatever total worldwide emissions budget we decide we can accept any kind of per country instead of per capita base allocation [1] make no sense.
This can be seen by considering what happens if countries split. A large country that is over their allocation in a per country system can simply split into two or more smaller countries, with the split designed so that each of the new countries has about an equal fraction of the former country's emissions.
This results in no change in the total worldwide emissions, but now that set of people that were before over their total allocation and high on the list of people that need to make big changes now are all in countries under their allocation and in the "should do something about it eventually but no need for big changes now" group of countries.
If they are clever about how they split the original large country into smaller countries they can immediately make free trade treaties and travel treaties between them that effectively make a common market with free travel like much of Europe now has so the split into multiple countries doesn't even change life much for the citizens of the new countries.
Whatever countries have now moved to the top of the "need big changes now" list because of this now have incentive to split, and so on.
[1] By base allocation I mean whatever share they would be allocated in a world with no trade. Actual allocations need to take into account people emitting more because they are making/growing things for other people which reduces the emissions directly attributable to those other people.
- aesh2Xa1 1y agoIf you can make the case to China be my guest. I don't think it's interested in splitting up the country to reduce it's lead role in such emissions.
- tzs 1y agoThe point of the country splitting hypothetical was to show that a country's total emission is not a useful measure of whether they are doing better or worse than any other given country on addressing emissions. A useful measure should not be affected by where we happen to draw political boundaries on our maps.
- aesh2Xa1 1y agoIf you ignore that countries really do exist and really do produce those emissions in order to succeed in their economic objectives, sure, then it's not useful. Outside that thought experiment it actually is useful, and that's why we have data showing that China leads, by far, in producing emissions. By the way, they lead in methane and nitrous oxide as well -- it isn't just carbon dioxide. https://ourworldindata.org/greenhouse-gas-emissions https://ourworldindata.org/greenhouse-gas-emissions
- tzs 1y agoIt is not useful because it ignores population. One property a useful measure of something undesirable (like CO2 emissions) should have is that if you identify the country that is doing the worst by that measure, and they were to change so that their economy works like that of the second worst country and their people live a lifestyle nearly identical to the people of the second country, that should improve the thing being measured. Total by country fails at that. If China were to change so that they are basically a clone of the US economy and lifestyle their emissions would go way up. Conversely, if the US were to change to be a China clone that would result in a big decrease in total emissions.
- aesh2Xa1 1y agoNo, the description of what actually is produced, and by who, is accurate and useful. If you want to suppose those these two countries' populations changed lifestyles, I can also entertain that argument. You'd want to consider the economic reasons why one produces the emissions it does right now, and then suppose how that changes. In such a case, who is purchasing China's manufacturing output, and who is now purchasing that of the US? Ignoring the world's largest and fastest-growing source of emissions simply because its per-capita rate is lower is a distraction from solving the actual problem. It's an enticing "what if," but does not reflect the reality of the real data we have today. That data says China is the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.
- drdeca 1y ago