4 ms·
So what are we going to do about China?
by declan_roberts 8mo ago
So what are we going to do about China?
- doug_durham 8mo agoA troll response I presume. Or perhaps sarcasm without the indicator.
- declan_roberts 8mo agoNot a troll comment. China produces as much or more CO2 as much as the next 5 countries combined. It's logical to start with the king of greenhouse emissions if you want to stop global warming.
- laffOr 8mo agoThere is no need for ordering right? All countries can start acting at the same time.
- generj 8mo agoChina is rapidly going green.
- reducesuffering 8mo agoIs the US even more rapidly going green? https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/co2?hideControls=false&Gas+or+Warming=CO%E2%82%82&Accounting=Territorial&Fuel+or+Land+Use+Change=All+fossil+emissions&Count=Per+country&country=CHN~USA~IND~GBR~OWID_WRL https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/co2?hideControls=false&... China's emissions were 10 billion tons CO2 in 2017 and have increased every single year to 12.29 billion tons CO2 in 2024. Meanwhile, US decreased from 5.22 to 4.9 in the same time
- michaelmrose 8mo ago1/4 the population. Per capita we are 65% worse not considering how much of China's pollution is on our behalf
- Windchaser 8mo agoYeah, and don't even get me started on historic emissions. China has only produced significant CO2/capita in the last decade. The US and Europe are responsible for the accumulated GHG that have gotten us into the current mess. We blew nearly the entire CO2 "budget" for keeping us under 2C of warming, just by ourselves, so it's kinda odd to be pointing fingers at the foreigners who are just now halfway catching up to what we're emitting now.
- reducesuffering 8mo agoBut those historic emissions have also produced scientific and engineering progress that other developing nations got to piggyback off of for their development.
- Windchaser 8mo agoAye, true, but we also then have a responsibility to produce scientific and engineering progress to get off of fossil fuels. And then to follow through, and get off fossil fuels.
- shoxidizer 8mo agoBoth these trends have reversed in 2025. US emissions icreased by 2.5% https://rhg.com/research/us-greenhouse-gas-emissions-2025/ https://rhg.com/research/us-greenhouse-gas-emissions-2025/ China's emmisions have decreased by <1% https://e360.yale.edu/digest/china-emissions-decline https://e360.yale.edu/digest/china-emissions-decline
- renjimen 8mo agoNot per capita. The US is still the worst large country. If you account for offshoring manufacturing then the US looks even worse. https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-greenhouse-gas-emissions
- reducesuffering 8mo agoWhy should should per-capita be most important? If country A keeps their population stable and emissions under control, but country B of the same starting population, keeps doubling their population and doubling their emissions, why should country A have an increasingly declined allowance of emissions when they were more responsible in keeping their total emissions down (by not having as many people)?
- hiccuphippo 8mo agoBecause some countries pay others to pollute in their stead?
- layer8 8mo agoChina has a declining population, and had a one-child policy for many years. Also, you don’t want all the low-population countries to each start contributing as much to global warming as the US.
- shoxidizer 8mo agoIf country B splits into countries C, D, E and F, all of which emit less than country A, has it found an effective way to reduce emissions? Should all countries adopt the Monaco lifestyle to defeat global warming? I guess if you want to find a fair way to measure administration of land you could emmisions per hectare or rainfall.
- Scarblac 8mo agoBecause per capita is the only thing that makes sense. If China were to split into 10 countries each emitting 10% of what they do now it'd be the exact same emissions, but according to you it would be much better. Similarly if the EU would become one country, that country would be high up on the list, much higher than member countries now! Oh no! Looking at per capita emissions is much more fair. Anyway, China's emissions are falling since last year ( https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-co2-emissions-have-now-been-flat-or-falling-for-21-months/ https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-co2-emissions-ha... ). What's the US doing?
- smt88 8mo agoYou can't really isolate China's emissions. They manufacture a huge proportion of the goods the rest of the world needs to operate. The green countries are essentially outsourcing their pollution to China.
- throwerxyz 8mo ago[flagged]
- danny_codes 8mo agoChina is bringing online a stupendous amount of renewables. They’ve blown through their own targets on solar energy deployments. With where batteries are headed I suspect their CO2 emissions will drop much faster than expected. Already they’ve hit peak coal and it’s on the way down
- dyauspitr 8mo agoChina is going to be fully green in a decade or two. India in 3 or 4.
- idiotsecant 8mo agoNothing? China is solving the problem on their own. They already make substantially less carbon per person that most of the west. If we want to be like China it's a simple proposition: be OK with Manhattan project level investments in power transmission from places that have lots of renewables to places that need renewables.
- rayiner 8mo agoClimate is determined by total CO2 output, not per capita. That’s a real problem, because China, and all the poor countries in Asia and Africa aren’t going to stop increasing their CO2 output per capita until they reach western standards of living.
- Windchaser 8mo agoSounds like we should pioneer better low-emissions tech, then, and pass it along to them. We've got more expendable income and a better tech base from which to do that.
- throwerxyz 8mo ago[flagged]
- rayiner 8mo agoUnfortunately, I can imagine the ignorant Americans who don’t realize that all those poor people want SUVs too. You know who doesn’t talk about climate change? Anybody in my family in Bangladesh. They want to live like Americans.
- dang 8mo agoWe've banned this account for breaking the site guidelines. Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- 8mo ago
- legitster 8mo agoThe plan was always to put economic pressure on China to catch up to the rest of the developed world, but we can't exactly tell someone else to stop crapping their pants while we are still crapping our pants.
- anonymousiam 8mo ago2030 is just around the corner. China has pledged to cap their CO2 emissions at 2030 levels. If they're trying to meet this goal, it would explain the thousands of new coal-fired plants they're building right now. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj4y159190go https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj4y159190go https://www.carbonbrief.org/chinas-construction-of-new-coal-power-plants-reached-10-year-high-in-2024 https://www.carbonbrief.org/chinas-construction-of-new-coal-...
- triceratops 8mo agoThey build new coal plants but those either replace old ones or are idle. Nearly 90% of all new electricity comes from solar and wind.
- hannob 8mo agoIf the rest of the world wants to still have an industry once we finally decide to seriously use green technology, they should quickly catch up to China - if that's still possible. While China is still very reliant on fossil-fuels, and particularly dirty coal, they're at the same time working on dominating the post-fossil age at astonishing speed. After they already dominate solar and batteries, they're working on doing the same for a number of other future green industries. They are already dominating future technologies like Green Methanol that most people in Europe or the US have never heard of.
- BigTTYGothGF 8mo agoThe same China that, added more new solar capacity in 2024 than the US currently has total? And is currently at 36% of its total energy use from renewable sources compared to the US's 23%? And has ~32GW of nuclear plants in construction compared to the US's 2.5GW? I hope we steal their playbook.
- epistasis 8mo agoWe don't have to do anything about China, "China’s CO2 emissions have now been ‘flat or falling’ for 21 months" https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-co2-emissions-have-now-been-flat-or-falling-for-21-months/ https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-co2-emissions-ha... China is building clean energy for a good chunk of the world, including itself. A better question may be: What is the US going to do to make up for its historical emissions? The US got wealthy by creating far more emissions than China, and all those historical emissions are now a problem for the rest of the world. If people in the US try to turn climate action into a blame game, it will end very very poorly for the US.
- seanw444 8mo agoClimate reparations now!
- ahmeneeroe-v2 8mo ago>If people in the US try to turn climate action into a blame game, it will end very very poorly for the US. Pure fantasy. What will happen to the US and who will do it to us?
- epistasis 8mo agoThe US can't even get countries to enter trade agreements anymore, because it's throwing around threats of large tariffs and annexation of others' lands. The world could drop the dollar as the reserve currency, something that was gradually happening but is now accelerating. If the US starts trying to force other countries into climate action without taking into account its own contributions, the US will likely cut out of the global economy, and become far poorer as the rest of the world surpasses its wealth through vigorous trade. The US was the sole remaining superpower, but has recently decided to only occupy a much weaker position with a mere "sphere of influence" and ceding leadership in other parts of the world to others. The US is signalling to allies in Europe that it will no longer lead, that the prior world is over and the US is bugging out, meaning Europe will gain far more influence. The more that the US attacks others without providing any leadership, the less that the US will be able to take from the world. Up until recently, the US's position of massive economic strength was largely due to it's dominant position among nations and the goodwill that others had towards it. Turning the climate problem into a blame game on other countries would further weaken the US's position and options.
- maxglute 8mo agoEmulate them? PRC solar power production last year conservatively will diplace ~45 billion barrels of oil, or 10%-20% more than total global consumption per year. It's just retarded eco accounting that attributes emissions to renewable manufacturers while fossil exporters don't get any penalties for extracting emissions. Every year of PRC solar prevents doubling of oil, basically they're like the only significant country whose net contribution is negative for how much carbon sinks they manufacture. So the answer for US+co is obviously stop exporting oil and lng, and start exporting renewables.