The hard part is international collaboration. Getting China and India on board has been a non-starter so far, and they're far and away the largest contributors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...
Per capita carbon emissions of US are 8 times as of India and 2 times as of China. And which country is withdrawing from the Paris agreement?
> Measuring per capita carbon
being better...
It is not clear to me why this makes sense.
If person A drive 2 miles per day in an SUV, and another person B drives 100 miles per day in a sedan -- person B pollutes more.
Why would driver A considered to pollute more ?
Meanwhile, “all miles driven are created equal” said no one ever.
In my view, measuring delta in total greenhouse gasses produced, would a better measure for international accords, and their subsequent corruption-free enforcement.
This is why I brought the pollution-per-mile vs pollution-produced analogy.
With regards to > "The amount of emissions correlate strongly to that pursuit of happiness at least for now..."
I think, you are also averaging out to-per-capita that, might not be appropriate...
Say there is energy-demanding and mineral demanding manufacture process, that causes deforestation, pollutes rivers, mows down beautiful mountains to get coal, produces lots of green house gasses.
You are claiming that this benefits, at least, economically, 'every' per-capita person on that country.
But if same manufacture used more renewable energy, and produced more expensive goods. Would the 'per-capita' be worst off?
Perhaps it would not be. Right?
In other words, we really need to measure what that manufacture is doing.
And that's why I think measuring changes in pollution (due to changes in policy of a given country), and changes in preservation of natural habitats -- is a much more effective way to measure policies of governments.
Another way to look at it is this way:
Performance indicators should be relevant to the individuals or institutions that are actually accountable for the execution of what's being measured.
In this case, we are measuring government policies, not individuals. Therefore dividing per capita, should not be used as 'first-order' measure.
Also, deciding to not do something positive because other people are still doing something negative somewhere else is a shitty argument.
This is also against HN guidelines
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
>" When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
"
Up to and including Kyoto they differentiated between developed and developing world. That differentiation was lost at Paris so the developed world could evade their "historical responsibility" (a key phrase of the differentiation). The intent was, I think, that the developed world would assist via subsidy the developing world to shortcut past the mucky phase of fuel use. An intent that goes all the way back to the eighties, and has come and gone in terms of visibility. That would have cost actual money. Needless to say that didn't happen. Or come remotely close to happening.
https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/overview.php?v=booklet2018&ds...
China is ahead of schedule in reducing its emissions. Consider also that being the first to switch to renewables or other energy sources means we develop technology to replace existing infrastructure that we can then export. The first-mover advantage on this is obvious.
India and China both have leadership that acknowledge the existence of anthropogenic climate change and is taking active measures. That would seem like table stakes but unfortunately we live in a world where that's not a given.
India produces 20% of electricity from renewable sources, not including large hydro[1]. Including large hydro, it's 29%. In comparison, the US produces only 15% from renewable sources including hydro[2] which, of course, has lots of environmental costs before any energy generation begins. This is admittedly a meaningless factoid but still kind of cool - India has 5 of the 10 largest solar power stations in the world, more than any other nation.[5] The Delhi city government has made it mandatory for government and public institutions to install rooftop solar[6]. This is on top of a government program that provides subsidized loans for rooftop solar on factories.[7] There's plenty of other renewable energy, rainwater harvesting, and recycling programs at various levels of the Indian government - federal, state, and city. I'm not saying all of them will work (it's the government, after all) but it's solid effort, and hard cash being put in.
Gasoline costs USD 4.55/gal in Mumbai today[8] - compared to around USD 3.50 in California, which already has the highest gas prices in the continental US. Due to the lower average disposable income in India, this means motorists prioritize fuel economy over comfort, and even safety.
India's annual population growth rate is 1.10% - a shade above the global average of 1.09%[3]. It's also been steadily dropping for decades and that trend is expected to continue.[4] China's population growth rate is 0.41% - lower even than the US.[3]
The only way India and China can keep from increasing their emissions is by stopping their economic progress. This would effectively keep their respective populations poor, undernourished, and lacking modern amenities such as healthcare, transportation, or entertainment. So what do you mean by "on board" exactly? What other shining exemplars of environmental rectitude can one point at to persuade India and China? What other nations have made, or committed to make, similar lifestyle sacrifices?
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_India
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_the_United....
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_populatio....
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_India#Fertilit....
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_photovoltaic_power_sta....
6. https://www.ndtv.com/delhi-news/government-announces-policy-....
7. https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2017/12/07/india-t....
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
If you want to bring an earlier comment into the conversation, the way to do that is to explain what it is and link to it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21608174
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21601167
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21600892
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21505062
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21428001
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21220189
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21206132
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21172089
There's also a simple solution to getting trade partners on board. It's called a carbon tariff.
being tiny now implies incredible room for growth given growth rates of those countries, which is actually an arugment for more action not less.
> Per capita is the only way we can talk about CO2
Wouldn't it also mean India and china won't have to do anything for decades till they get to same per capita as USA ?
No it doesn't following GP's chain of logic. It doesn't need to do anything till the point it hits US per capita.
Why would any burden fall on china/india given they are already on the low end of per capita.
Can you define what burden falls on them under your per capita model?
China's per-capita output is a problem. But it's not the kind of problem where we can just point fingers at it, and using that as a justification to ignore the mess we're making. (As we range from 'just as bad' to 'much worse'.)
If the US does not reduce it's emissions, yes. (In China's case, it's emissions are currently per-capita similar to most of the EU).
This is a great argument for the US, and the EU to reduce their emissions, instead of sitting around, pointing fingers are China.
Again, if you aren't using per capita metrics, you will get absurd conclusions. If a country splits in half, does that mean it should be allowed to emit twice as much?
Why would EU need to reduce if they are currently 'middle of the road' like you said.
The US is in a terrible position, however, because everything is car-based. It would help if they'd push for more dense development and extending public transit, but there's really no sign of that at all.
No, it really can't. The voters would immediately vote for the candidate that promises to reverse this. Gas prices are a huge political issue in the US, to an irrational extent. Americans cling irrationally to their gigantic SUVs and will do anything to keep them.
>Most European cars are way more efficient than American cars.
Not really, no. Cars these days are all pretty efficient; it's the trucks and SUVs that guzzle gas. Tiny cars really don't get much better fuel economy than mid-size cars any more, and no one buys full-size cars these days (I don't think there's even any made any more). A Prius is way more efficient than some tiny European car like a Smart.
Now if you're talking average fleet economy (which takes into account that so many Americans buy trucks and SUVs instead of cars), then you're correct, but that's because of buying choices. If we all switched to Priuses, we'd easy double (or more) our average fuel economy.
>Admittedly, this is a cultural, not a technological, problem in the US.
Exactly, which is why I was complaining about the sprawl and car culture of the US. Just telling people to buy more efficient cars isn't going to change anything; it's a product of a culture where there's sprawl and too much low-density development and a mindset that everything should be optimized for car-based travel. It's naturally going to lead to many people being selfish and buying larger vehicles than they need. This is the case everywhere where there's private vehicles, including Europe and Japan. I've seen huge SUVs, vans, etc. in Japan and Europe. Of course, they're not that common in those places because fuel prices are high and public transit is good, but if those two factors weren't true there, they'd be full of giant SUVs just like the US.
Is there a country where this isn't an issue? I know its a super big deal here India. There are protests, strikes and political agigatioins on regular basis on this issue. It might actually be the number one issue here.
If gas were $200/gallon, then the amount of attention Americans pay to it would be rational.
We can talk about total global emissions, but then bring it down to the total per capita contribution per country. e.g. China has 20% of the worlds population so are “allowed” 20% of the worlds total emissions.