3 ms·

The sad reality is that much of the climate work done in the West does not matter because China, India, and the rest of the world are not involved.

by tlogan 7mo ago

kergonath 7mo ago
That is completely wrong. First, the West and particularly the US are still well ahead of China regarding both historical total emissions and per-capita annual emissions. And regardless of what China does in the future we still need to get our acts together domestically. Also, China is aggressively pushing low-carbon energy sources on all fronts. Where they are now is not necessarily an indication of where they will be in a decade or two. A large part of their emissions is the result of stuff they make for us. If we are serious about climate policy, we have to set up trade barriers proportional to greenhouse gases emissions to limit this effect. These policies must be informed by climate science. Finally, regardless of what the rest of the world does, mitigation depends only on us and how well prepared we are. Really, there is absolutely no scenario in which it is not a good idea to understand what the hell is going on with our climate.
- tlogan 7mo ago
  If the United States stopped polluting 100%, global pollution would decrease by only about 10%. Probably even less, because much of that pollution would simply be exported through outsourcing. So what happens next?
  - hnfong 7mo ago
    You're arguing a hypothetical where the US stopped all emissions 100% and the rest of the world isn't doing anything. The reality is that China is aggressively pushing solar and electric vehicles, and the West is complaining about it. Meanwhile the current US president's maxim is "drill baby drill". I mean, if we don't need to stick to facts, let's discuss the hypothetical scenario where I am a powerful wizard, and when I say a magic word and I can halve the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere? OK, now where's my Nobel peace prize dammit??
    - tlogan 7mo ago
      So we do not need to worry. China and India will cut their emission a lot and we US just need to cut a little. Problem solved. /s From 2022 to 2023 (lates report), China increased their emission from 11.9 Gt to 12.6 Gt. The US decreased from 4.79 to 4.68 Gt. So we (US and China) increased emission by 0.6 Gt. So we (the world) are polluting more and more and you are telling me that we are on a great trajectory.
      - chanux 7mo ago
        Bear with me, I'm adding some nice pictures to this thread. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/gallery/2026/mar/05/pictures-china-wind-farms-trump https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/gallery/2026/mar/05/pict...
  - ryeights 7mo ago
    >If we are serious about climate policy, we have to set up trade barriers proportional to greenhouse gases emissions to limit this effect. Consumption economies can incentivize production economies to emit less.
  - kergonath 7mo ago
    Please remember that we are not talking about stopping climate-related policies. The point here is climate-related science. And even if you are an arch-conservative and you assume (despite all observations) that you can do fuck all about it, knowing how things are going to be is very useful if you intend to survive, never mind thrive.
myrmidon 7mo ago
Western efforts matter because they allow less wealthy nations to follow along a proven path towards sustainability. Nnobody is going to follow a hypocrite, and no one in east asia is gonna cut back on consumption/growth/lifestyle if rich westerners can't even pretend to put in some token effort for the same cause. Solr and wind power is arguably a huge success story (looking at china specifically) because it was arguably enabled and triggered by western efforts in research, development and commercialization.
- bakies 7mo ago
  The technology will get cheaper as we start to use it. Solar is getting ridiculously cheap but China is leading the way on that
Shin-- 7mo ago
Hilarious take. China and India have historically emitted much less carbon than many western countries, per capita they emit less Co2, and a large part of emission is to produce for western countries, which have effectively outsourced their emissions to other (poorer) countries. At the same time, the US is the main force fighting against carbon neutrality, renewable energy and pretty much anything reasonable. By directly burning a lot of fossil fuels and by lobbying and poisoning discourse in other countries. Meanwhile China is by far the biggest producer of anything related to renewable energies and installing more renewable energy than the rest of the world, by far. If anything, the work done worldwide does no matter (it still does though) because USA is doing their best to destroy the planet.
- tlogan 7mo ago
  Using the IEA’s 2024 energy-related CO₂ data, advanced economies emitted 10.9 billion tonnes out of a global 37.8 billion tonnes in 2024, which is about 28.8% of the world total. So if developed countries completely eliminate all pollution we will reduce it by 30%. Good. Then what is the next step? War with China? Attack India? [1] https://www.iea.org/reports/global-energy-review-2025/co2-emissions https://www.iea.org/reports/global-energy-review-2025/co2-em...
  - acdha 7mo ago
    Let China continue to cancel fossil fuel plants as they roll out renewables and electrify at rapid scale? It’s not 1980, China is leading a lot of key technologies and they’re looking like they value long-term planning a lot more than we do. To the extent that they need a nudge, a carbon tax would be very effective for correcting export market incentives, too.
    - tlogan 7mo ago
      They are doing so good that they increased their emission by 4.7% from 2022 to 2023. /s
      - 7mo ago
toomanyrichies 7mo ago
Keeping one's side of the street clean is the right move, regardless of what anyone else does.

The sad reality is that much of the climate work done in the West does not matter because China, India, and the rest of the world are not involved.

by tlogan 7mo ago

The sad reality is that much of the climate work done in the West does not matter because China, India, and the rest of the world are not involved.

kergonath 7mo ago

That is completely wrong. First, the West and particularly the US are still well ahead of China regarding both historical total emissions and per-capita annual emissions. And regardless of what China does in the future we still need to get our acts together domestically. Also, China is aggressively pushing low-carbon energy sources on all fronts. Where they are now is not necessarily an indication of where they will be in a decade or two. A large part of their emissions is the result of stuff they make for us. If we are serious about climate policy, we have to set up trade barriers proportional to greenhouse gases emissions to limit this effect. These policies must be informed by climate science. Finally, regardless of what the rest of the world does, mitigation depends only on us and how well prepared we are. Really, there is absolutely no scenario in which it is not a good idea to understand what the hell is going on with our climate.

tlogan 7mo ago
If the United States stopped polluting 100%, global pollution would decrease by only about 10%. Probably even less, because much of that pollution would simply be exported through outsourcing. So what happens next?
- hnfong 7mo ago
  You're arguing a hypothetical where the US stopped all emissions 100% and the rest of the world isn't doing anything. The reality is that China is aggressively pushing solar and electric vehicles, and the West is complaining about it. Meanwhile the current US president's maxim is "drill baby drill". I mean, if we don't need to stick to facts, let's discuss the hypothetical scenario where I am a powerful wizard, and when I say a magic word and I can halve the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere? OK, now where's my Nobel peace prize dammit??
  - tlogan 7mo ago
    So we do not need to worry. China and India will cut their emission a lot and we US just need to cut a little. Problem solved. /s From 2022 to 2023 (lates report), China increased their emission from 11.9 Gt to 12.6 Gt. The US decreased from 4.79 to 4.68 Gt. So we (US and China) increased emission by 0.6 Gt. So we (the world) are polluting more and more and you are telling me that we are on a great trajectory.
    - chanux 7mo ago
      Bear with me, I'm adding some nice pictures to this thread. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/gallery/2026/mar/05/pictures-china-wind-farms-trump https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/gallery/2026/mar/05/pict...
- ryeights 7mo ago
  >If we are serious about climate policy, we have to set up trade barriers proportional to greenhouse gases emissions to limit this effect. Consumption economies can incentivize production economies to emit less.
- kergonath 7mo ago
  Please remember that we are not talking about stopping climate-related policies. The point here is climate-related science. And even if you are an arch-conservative and you assume (despite all observations) that you can do fuck all about it, knowing how things are going to be is very useful if you intend to survive, never mind thrive.

myrmidon 7mo ago

Western efforts matter because they allow less wealthy nations to follow along a proven path towards sustainability. Nnobody is going to follow a hypocrite, and no one in east asia is gonna cut back on consumption/growth/lifestyle if rich westerners can't even pretend to put in some token effort for the same cause. Solr and wind power is arguably a huge success story (looking at china specifically) because it was arguably enabled and triggered by western efforts in research, development and commercialization.

bakies 7mo ago
The technology will get cheaper as we start to use it. Solar is getting ridiculously cheap but China is leading the way on that

Shin-- 7mo ago

Hilarious take. China and India have historically emitted much less carbon than many western countries, per capita they emit less Co2, and a large part of emission is to produce for western countries, which have effectively outsourced their emissions to other (poorer) countries. At the same time, the US is the main force fighting against carbon neutrality, renewable energy and pretty much anything reasonable. By directly burning a lot of fossil fuels and by lobbying and poisoning discourse in other countries. Meanwhile China is by far the biggest producer of anything related to renewable energies and installing more renewable energy than the rest of the world, by far. If anything, the work done worldwide does no matter (it still does though) because USA is doing their best to destroy the planet.

tlogan 7mo ago
Using the IEA’s 2024 energy-related CO₂ data, advanced economies emitted 10.9 billion tonnes out of a global 37.8 billion tonnes in 2024, which is about 28.8% of the world total. So if developed countries completely eliminate all pollution we will reduce it by 30%. Good. Then what is the next step? War with China? Attack India? [1] https://www.iea.org/reports/global-energy-review-2025/co2-emissions https://www.iea.org/reports/global-energy-review-2025/co2-em...
- acdha 7mo ago
  Let China continue to cancel fossil fuel plants as they roll out renewables and electrify at rapid scale? It’s not 1980, China is leading a lot of key technologies and they’re looking like they value long-term planning a lot more than we do. To the extent that they need a nudge, a carbon tax would be very effective for correcting export market incentives, too.
  - tlogan 7mo ago
    They are doing so good that they increased their emission by 4.7% from 2022 to 2023. /s
    - 7mo ago

toomanyrichies 7mo ago

Keeping one's side of the street clean is the right move, regardless of what anyone else does.