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Can you tell everyone what their per capita emission is? While you're at it, compare that with the US per capita emissions. Also let us know the accumulated emi
by lbrito 1y ago
Can you tell everyone what their per capita emission is? While you're at it, compare that with the US per capita emissions. Also let us know the accumulated emissions for China and US in the last 50 years.
Thanks.
- mulmen 1y agoPer capita emissions aren’t relevant to climate impact. Neither are relative emissions between countries. This is a global issue.
- vanviegen 1y agoNo, but if some people are outputting way more CO2 than others, these are the ones we should be focussing on first.
- mulmen 1y agoSerialization is a losing strategy here. “Focus” is irrelevant. We need fundamental shifts in energy production.
- api 1y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di... The US is fairly high but below Canada, Russia, and many Middle Eastern countries. US emissions have also consistently fallen for the past 25 years or so.
- AuthAuth 1y agoYes China is outputting way more C02 than the next 6 biggest pollutors combined. Lets focus on them first. They are the only ones not reducing their emission growth.
- the-smug-one 1y agoPer capita emissions are relevant, because it shows how much each separate country needs to improve in a relative manner. Absolute emissions doesn't matter to what each state needs to do.
- mulmen 1y agoWe all breathe the same air. Every state needs to do everything it can.
- vkou 1y ago> Per capita emissions aren’t relevant to climate impact They aren't relevant to the climate, but they are relevant to how much energy and wealth you allow each person to have. Does a person in China deserve to have less energy or wealth than a person in America?
- mulmen 1y agoI don’t follow. Energy demands can be met with renewables. We don’t have to decrease energy consumption at all. We only need to eliminate fossil sources.
- School-Cotton 1y agoPer capita emissions are relevant in the sense that if China broke into ten separate countries tomorrow, with each new country maintaining their current level of emissions, the effect on the planet would be the same even though an entity called “China” is no longer at the top of the leaderboard. There is some per capita carbon emissions budget such that if each human on earth stayed within that budget, climate change could be mitigated[0]. The average Chinese person exceeds that budget, but does so by significantly less than the average American. So the average American is more at fault for climate change than the average Chinese person is. Of course, your second claim, that this is a global issue, is correct. But if we solved the global issue in a fair way, China would still emit a few times more CO2 than the US. 0: “Mitigated” rather than totally solved, because to go back to pre-industrial temperatures the budget would have to be negative. But let’s say we’re talking about staying within 2C or some similar goal.
- mulmen 1y agoI don’t see the value of expressing a supply side issue in terms of demand. You can’t just ask people to choose clean energy. That happens from the top, not the bottom.
- lbrito 1y agoThat's not the point. Why are some people entitled to more than others based on where they live? The US is the world leader in per capita CO2 emissions. Has been for over a century. Only in 2021 China has reached 8t per capita. Do you know when the US reached that figure? 1899. The inhabitants of the US, and of the UK before it, have been enjoying the benefits of energy-intensive industry for hundreds of years. But the externality of that process - the emissions - is a burden shared with everyone else in the world. As others have mentioned, the planet does not care who emitted CO2. None of those countries is in a position to criticize the emissions of China or India or Brazil or whatever other country.
- mulmen 1y agoYou seem to be conflating CO2 emissions with energy production.
- fcdssssx 1y ago[dead]
- kvirani 1y agoGreat question. Let's indeed make it a point of discussion then. I'd like to know too.
- jacobolus 1y agoChinese CO₂ emissions per capita are only about 60% as much as the USA, but in the past 25 years US per capita emissions have dropped by about a third and Chinese emissions per capita have almost tripled and are still rising rapidly. Considering that China is about 4 times as populous as the US, this is a huge problem for the world. (US emissions are also a huge problem; we all need for them to decrease very quickly.)
- vasco 1y agoIf they are still at 60% of USA unless your opinion is that Chinese people don't deserve air conditioning as much as Americans, you don't really have a point.
- jacobolus 1y agoAir conditioning is a relatively small part of global CO₂ emissions (3%); you should be more worried about heating. I would expect air conditioning to also be among the easier energy uses to match with solar power as we go forward. Better building design and more efficient AC devices also make a huge difference.
- vasco 1y agoThe point is about quality of life.
- jacobolus 1y agoEveryone is going to have a bad quality of life, to the extent they're able to live at all, if we don't act quickly at massive scale in a coordinated fashion.
- ben_w 1y agoThere's many ways to achieve improved quality of life. Our fancy-insulated new German house with triple glazing and a heat pump used an average of 250 W grid power last month, despite our PV being (1) a Balkonkraftwerk and therefore only 800 W peak, (2) summer's over, lots of clouds now, and (3) in a very sub-optimal location due to a builder's skip. (Still, the neighbours have trimmed the hedge last weekend and the skip has now gone…)
- throwawaymaths 1y agoThe earth doesn't give a shit about per capita, and us and eu are net reducing CO2 emissions since 2014 (even during trump I)
- mtmickush 1y agoThe earth isn't a person. I think it seems valid to consider the harm and or benefits being caused on a per person basis. Why should an individual in the US be allowed to release more CO2 emissions than an individual in China?
- GenerocUsername 1y agoYes thats right.
- ben_w 1y ago> Why should an individual in the US be allowed to release more CO2 emissions than an individual in China? The lack of a single world government is why. Agreements between nations are only enforced by honour, and while that's more than nothing, it's not great. The practical outcome of this is that who is "allowed" to do anything is dynamic, and who may do something the most can be inverted extremely quickly.
- malshe 1y agoI am with you on this one. I have seen people making similar arguments about plastic dumped in the oceans where at least until about a decade ago China was well ahead of every nation. The oceans don't care about the per capita plastic polluting them.
- throwawaymaths 1y agoYeah currently the biggest source of oceanic plastic is phillipines IIRC
- amalcon 1y agoThe earth also doesn't care about national borders, so why are national numbers more useful in this regard?
- whoevercares 1y agoIt is 8.89 China vs 14 according to https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-per-capita/ https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-pe...
- AuthAuth 1y agoI couldnt care less what their per captia emissions are they have 1.5b people. Accumulated is about the same as the EU and will very soon overtake the US.
- jurip 1y agoEU isn't a country, it's a union of 27 countries with their separate legislatures. I live in Finland, a country of five million people. According to your math I think I'm allowed to basically burn a lake of oil every day, right?
- AuthAuth 1y agoExactly the EU isnt a country and China still produces more pollution than all 27 countries combined. "My maths" is that countries cannot use per captia stats as an excuse to produce tons of pollution. Would it be acceptable for every country to pollute as much as China if every country in the world had 1.5b people? No it wouldnt we would say thats to many people. If a country wants to have 5million people and produce 15(units) of co2 per captia thats fine that is not globe threatening levels of pollution its living within their means. However if that country were to have 2 billion people and had a per captia of 10(units) I would say they need to significantly reduce that to about 2.5(units). Whereas you'd be making the argument that the country is actually doing a lot better even though they produce 20billion(units) total.