Hacker News Reader

Comment by the_monocle | Hacker News Reader

The USA has double the carbon emission of china with only a fourth of the population. So per capita an average US citizen contributes 8 times as much to emission as an average Chinese citizen.

View on HN

This shouldn't matter. What matters is the overall output. Even if the US had 0 output tomorrow, we would still have 80% carbon emissions from the rest of the world (India and China combined make up a big portion).

Everyone wants to solve climate change, but look the other way at the biggest contributors that also pollute the earth with all sorts of other toxic materials.

The sad part is if we did everything the politicians are proposing in the 'green new deal', China and India would use that as an opportunity as a power grab because they aren't adhering to the same rules.

(*Half the carbon emissions of china), but yes, per capita we are much higher. In addition, the amount of emissions in China is at least partly related to the huge amount of manufacturing we import from China.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/all-the-worlds-carbon-emiss...

US is #2 in the world, with more than double the emissions of the next country down the list.

Not the fear monger, but if Trump is allowed to finish his plan on maximum deregulation, USA will become #1 by emissions in less than 10 years. This does not frighten me on its own - each new President deregulate more here, while put new regulations there, depending on (frankly) who has access to put money (indirectly) to his pocket; what does concern me is that the voters seems to be fine with that. And why wouldn't they?? With so much automatization on the horizon, its silly to believe average Joe will chose clean air, clean water and healthy food, over a job security. This seems to be a new norm, I am afraid.

Someone made the point that while a future with greatly reduced carbon emissions are a certainty, every single day that's delayed means millions and even billions in additional profits for certain industries. There's enormous financial incentive to delay.

Per capita does not really matter in this particular case; it's an absolute numbers thing. CO2 emissions go into one same atmosphere.

Who's buying the products built in Chinese factories?

The entire world; you do make a good point here. So should we start taxing Chinese products more, like Trump has started doing, and some people in the EU have been suggesting for a long time, then? This would at least be coherent. Yet the group of people warning the most about global warming tend to also be people who are still promoting free trade and globalization (a good example is French President Macron, who seems to holds both beliefs simultaneously).

Yeah, that's exactly what I say we should be doing.

Set the standard, and then ensure other countries honor that standard by penalizing offenders with tariffs.

Edit: Also, Donald Trump is well known as denier of climate change, so it's dishonest to frame his tariffs against China as a positive action for those who want to prevent climate change. China knows Trump doesn't give a shit about pollution, so they will not correct for it, which means the additional taxes have no effect on addressing climate change.

Macron deserves no defense. Please attack his hypocrisy as you please.

Arbitrary lines on the map do not matter as far as the atmosphere is concerned, which is why per capita is the correct measure when accessing whether a country is doing better or worse than other countries on emissions.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com