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Comment by KyleOS | Hacker News Reader

Taking into account the nation's population size gives us a more accurate measure of countries' relative contributions to CO2 emissions. The flip between countries like Ireland and China when we go from total to per capita is really interesting.

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I doubt the population matters relative to the industries themselves that pollute.

Well, it's important when measuring which nations are most responsible for climate change. So we'll see the list topped by smaller countries with energy-intensive industries such as Qatar, as well as some small Western developed countries like Ireland also performing poorly. It helps provide a clearer picture of the climate change initiatives these governments should be pursuing, which I promise you matters to the industries themselves.

It also means that poor countries are better on these graphs. Does that mean we should encourage them to stay poor?

Only if you're arguing on the premise that they can only achieve sustainable economic growth in the 21st century by polluting the atmosphere.

Historically, that's a reasonable supposition. The hypothesis that poor countries can achieve economic prosperity without emissions requires proof.

We're in the 21st-century dude. Point to a time where access to foreign aid, other financial assistance, and tech that would enable economic prosperity on renewable energy is as easy as it is today.

Foreign aid and other financial assistance coming from polluting countries is neither zero-emissions, nor sustainable. Nor is it a probable route to prosperity. Look at the nations that have received significant foreign aid over the decades. How prosperous are they?

There are three basic camps among people who study foreign aid, if the goal is to lift countries out of poverty: 1) it doesn't work, and creates dependency instead. 2) it doesn't work, but that's because we need more of it. 3) it doesn't work, but if we try more ways of delivering aid, we can find something that does.

Tech is becoming available - not nearly proven to be sufficient, but progressing.

As I said, it requires proof, because there is no country that has progressed from poverty to prosperity without emissions.

Your facts don't match your premise. It helps us to understand, at an individual level, which individuals are more responsible than other individuals. Individuals don't rule the Earth; nations do. Looking at the data by nation rather than per capita in fact is the data that tells us which nations are most responsible for climate change. Humanity is destroying earth, not individual nations. If the western world cuts its emissions to 0 and the eastern world laughs and doubles its emissions in response we all still burn. The total emissions of humanity are all that matter in the context of climate change.

How do you explain the fact that Western European economies perform so well on a per-capita basis of emissions versus the US and Canada then? I do agree with some of your points on the Western world vs the East & that it will require homogenous action. But we in the West are in a position to lead the way, both in terms of actual implementation and or R&D for more cost-effective use of renewable energy in the future. The rest of the world will follow.

Should we count the European Union as a single entity or as ~30? What about the former Soviet Union?

IMHO, you should attach the pollution directly with corporations and money. Then you could readily tell which companies and industries are pushing "externalities" on their local populations and "poisoning the well" as it were.

I enjoy that people can downvote without as much as a rebuttal. Cowards! =)

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