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> It would seem that the biggest contributors to climate change and pollution are developing nations that use carbon based energy (ie coal plants in China, Russia, India, etc).

First, this is true, but also misleading.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?most_rec...

China is not even close to a top polluter per capita, while Canada and US are top there. That means China sustains a larger population with a comparatively smaller impact. Not looking at this metric per capita shows the implicit bias of valuing some citizens needs more than others, and refusal to accept this as a “my” problem but rather “their” problem, which is a source of east-west / north-south tension.

Second, in the particular example of China, the pollution is caused by offshoring manufacturing of goods that will be consumed by the top polluters per capita themselves. If we factored in the footprint of this consumption, instead of accounting it all on China’s budget, it would make the numbers even worse for developed nations.

We’re are going head first into a environmental crisis, and a severe reduction in consumption, which should be a top priority, is not considered at all. It’s a taboo topic, developed nations citizens will not accept a reduction in living standards, and the whole modern economy depends on increasing consumption and externalization of environmental costs.

>First, this is true, but also misleading

I dont even think it is true if you ignore population.

If you add up the developed and developing countries, I think the developed countries still emit more.

> China is not even close to a top polluter per capita, while Canada and US are top there. That means China sustains a larger population with a comparatively smaller impact.

To anyone reasonably familiar with China, this feels like either propaganda or extreme naivete. First off that number is probably based on official stats, and those were probably based on a sample consisting of a model village or two.

Second, the official pollution stats for China have no more credibility than US inflation statistics from any area (Nixon, Carter, Biden, etc.). And finally, just ask anyone in the provinces where industrial waste is generated assuming you didn't figure it out an hour before your train arrived. They'll give you a very different that sheds a light on your "comparatively smaller impact" notion.

Source: Investor in China, most family is in China, knowledge of internal politics from staff

Logically, China can be the largest polluter in absolute numbers while still not even above Canada, US, Japan, Germany on pollution per capita, considering the massive population. You don't need to put the data integrity in check over this fact, even though you only provided anecdotal evidence instead of numbers.

But ok, let's ignore China. We don't need to focus on China to support the argument that blaming pollution on developing nations is disingenuous.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?location...

Pollution per capita paints a different picture from the common narrative: there's still an order of magnitude difference between so called developed nations and others, and even between developed nations the gap is large – the avg. US citizen still pollutes 3x more than a Spanish citizen.

Supporting the narrative that developing nations are polluting the world, while simultaneously not rethinking your consumption habits is a double-standard.

the ole if i don't like the data then they're liars

do you have some better methodology to point to?

https://www.climatewatchdata.org/about/faq/ghg

In your opinion do people in China have the same lifestyle and consumption as people in the US?

Not even close, on average

This is a common talking point specially in America. On the other side in India, the people tend to believe that USA has done some of the worst damage to the planet to actually become 'developed' and USA is still one of the worst polluters and carbon emitters. People in India/China also tend to believe that USA/UK tend to outsource a lot of industrial manufacturing to India and China and this adds to the carbon emissions of these countries. There is also another aspect which is these two countries are the some of the most densely populated areas and the per capita emissions for countries like America are far egregious. There is also data that shows American oil and gas companies (combined) have historically added more CO2 than other country.

So yeah, there are arguments to be made from all sides. I am not in anyway trying to say that India/China should not do their part but American argument for not doing their part is mostly a political talking point.

Some more context and analysis here - https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/cop26-tackling-c...

but if the primary contribution to pollution is outsourcing, then doing their part means either less outsourcing or helping the countries that are being outsourced to.

even if the USA is responsible for indias pollution, at the end of the day it is still india that needs to reduce their pollution.

EDIT: people seem to misunderstand what i am trying to say.

i am not saying that the USA does not pollute. nor am i claiming that india pollutes more than the USA. all i am saying is that pollution that happens in india needs to be stopped in india, and pollution that happens in the USA needs to be stopped in the USA. the question is not who is responsible, the question is, who is in the position to implement a change. the USA can reduce their own pollution, but they can't stop pollution in india without indias cooperation. at best they can stop investments that cause pollution, and make other investments that help india reduce pollution. or they can stop importing products whose creation increases pollution. but either way india needs to contribute to that effort by making laws that enable a reduction of pollution in their country. the USA can't do that for them.

Do they? If their per capita pollution is fraction of USA. Wouldn't that mean that to be equal and fair they have quite a lot of room to increase their pollution. And USA should be responsible of actually going far negative at any cost to it's population.

of course. i am only addressing the argument that pollution through outsourcing should be the problem of the country doing the outsourcing, and not the country doing the outsourced work. sure, the outsourcing country is to blame, but the effort to reduce the pollution still needs to be done in the country where the outsourced work is done and the pollution happens.

The whole issue in this is people think China and Indian actors are maliciously polluting when they are usually relying on foreign investment from companies that ARE acting maliciously and evading the US to skirt climate regulations and other accountability issues. US/UK/“the west” companies often were the prime movers in building cheap coal power plants to provide electricity to whatever business they outsourced. Just because someone doesn’t look like you doesn’t mean they are evil, or different in mindset or situation.

ok, fair point, though that is the first time i hear that argument (that's on me of course). i don't believe that any country is maliciously polluting. and it is still the country where the pollution happens that is in the best position to force those polluters to reduce their emmisions.

however, you just made me realize that there is something that outsourcing countries possibly can do too. namely, i believe they can influence or even stop investments from their country that cause pollution elsewhere.

>It would seem that the biggest contributors to climate change and pollution are developing nations that use carbon based energy (ie coal plants in China, Russia, India, etc).

This is a misunderstanding of the basic numbers. Developed nations generally have much higher C02 emissions per capita, and often have higher CO2 emission per country.

The top 3 contributors by country are:

China, 7 tons/ capita & 10 Billion tons/yr USA, 16 tons/capita & 5 billion tons/yr India 2 tons/capita & 1.6 Billion tons/yr

The average American emits 2x the co2 as someone in China, and 8x someone in India.

It is hard to convince China & India to adopt greener energy when they are emitting far less CO2 per person.

https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-pe...

Also China and India are investing a crazy amount into replacing coal. Its just a slow process since they have to balance it with economic growth. Governments there are pretty cognizant that they'll be pretty badly affected by climate change. But the OP isn't really interested in facts, he's more interested in having his selfishness seen as rational.

Sources are numerous but heres the first few I found :

https://indianexpress.com/article/india/govt-nod-to-stronger...

https://www.csis.org/east-green-chinas-global-leadership-ren...

Unfortunately, the OP's mindset is that of many Westerners.

Currently, the average Indian citizen emits half the greenhouse gas of the global per capita average. To argue that they deserve less than their share is blatent discrimination.

Meanwhile, China has invested more than double what the US invested into renewable energy sources over the past decade, and more than all of Europe combined. And this is all while the average Chinese citizen emits 10 metric tons less of greenhouse gasses than the average American.

But all you hear in the west is how the bad coal plants in India and China are causing global warming when China already has 1 million more GWh of renewable energy than the US.

The fact is western lifestyles are not sustainable, especially American lifestyles.

Sources: https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/29752/...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenho...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_renewab...

But even if US citizens dropped per capita consumption to that of avg Chinese citizen, it wouldn't make a difference if the absolute volume of emissions into the atmosphere from China still dwarfed the impact of that change in the US. The point is that, while restricting lifestyles and carbon emissions in the West is fair, it's ultimately pointless w.r.t climate change.

>It wouldn't make a difference if the absolute volume of emissions into the atmosphere

First off, it literally would make a difference in the the absolute volume. 7 tons/person is objectively less than 15tons/person.

IF your point is simply that the US can't stop climate change all by itself, then of course you are correct.

Climate change is not a binary situation. it can be more or less extreme.

Do you throw your trash on the street just because someone else did? Less trash is obviously better than more trash.

Politically it's going to be a tough sell in the US to convince average Americans that they should sacrifice their standard of living so that China can get ahead. What percentage of Americans do you think will vote in favor of that policy? Meanwhile China has nuclear weapons pointed at us, and seems to have plenty of money available for a rapid military build up.

Does china have nuclear weapons pointed at the US? Isn't it the other way around?

Per capita barely matters. There are no participation prizes here. We need to decrease CO2 in the atmosphere, period.

Yes we need to decrease CO2, so the people who emit the most need to reduce the most. Nations don't emit CO2, people do

Finger pointing is not productive for resolving climate change. The US and Europe have done their fair share of getting CO2 levels where they are today. And the fact that the likes of China, India, etc are now also polluting at a disturbing scale is indeed bad news. But the bottom line is that we all need to burn a lot less fuel.

It's not about who's most or least guilty of this but about how we can collectively stop burning fossil fuel ASAP. It's not about fairness, sacrifices, or feeling good about things but just about discouraging known bad things (like burning fossil fuel) collectively and stimulating things that actually achieve something and move the needle.

I think when it comes to general aviation, a strong financial incentive to do that in a more fuel efficient way would have some impact. Just look at what incentive programs are doing for electrical vehicles. Electrical planes are not far behind and there are a few companies in this space with working products that could probably benefit from a little help. It's not that different.

I actually am one of those people that would take flying lessons if it was a little cheaper. Seems like a really fun thing to do. Do I need to fly. Nope, this would be purely for my own entertainment. It's definitely bad for the environment, and there is absolutely no need for gallons of fuel to be burned every hour I'd be flying. Fuel prices and the cost of flying are definitely helping me stay on the ground. I'd love to have a cheaper, electrical, option. I don't see that that would be less fun and it would be less harmful.

Try soaring/gliding. My husband has been in love with it as long as I've known him, and since his club, like most German clubs, uses a winch (big old Oldsmobile engine) to launch the planes, each launch uses less than a liter of fuel.

A skilled and lucky glider pilot can make that flight last for hours - my husband's personal best is something on the order of 8 hours and 800km.

This sport requires a lot of help on the ground, so it's very social and physically active.

I have actually considered that. Looks like a lot of fun. Unfortunately, I'm pretty far away from a suitable place to join a club.

> It would seem that the biggest contributors to climate change and pollution are developing nations that use carbon based energy (ie coal plants in China, Russia, India, etc).

Well, those countries also have huge masses of people, and they are already well below the per capita emissions in the EU, and far below the USA per capita emissions.

So, one thing we may want to help with is finding ways to make it possible to have a good quality of life without such a huge impact on the environment - and then, perhaps, export these technologies to China or India etc.

> Well, those countries also have huge masses of people, and they are already well below the per capita emissions in the EU

This has actually been untrue for almost a decade. China has had higher per-capita emissions than the EU since 2013, and is still climbing, while the EU's is declining.

The US is still 2x china, but has been declining for 50 years, and is currently declining drastically.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita?t...

India is still well below any (wealthy) EU country.

Also, China is manufacturing much of what the EU and USA are buying, so a lot of those emissions are outsourced to China. It will be interesting to see how these numbers evolve as the EU and USA are starting to think about bringing manufacturing back home...

Note also that China is still just below Germany - probably because of manufacturing.

yeah, but most countries in Europe as still much higher per capita.

> It would seem that the biggest contributors to climate change and pollution are developing nations that use carbon based energy (ie coal plants in China, Russia, India, etc).

No, it wouldn't seem. https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-pe...

Personally, I think the other countries are right to be skeptical when we (USA) tell them they need to reduce emissions. We could easily reduce our own emissions, using current technology that already exists, but we just don't want to - we want to live our current lifestyle and have others do the hard work and sacrifice. Not to mention we look like giant hypocrits after advancing our economy without regard to the environment for 200 years and suddenly are demanding everybody else take the extra care that we didn't.

Kylie Jenner from the article doesn't want to drive, the same way most people don't want to bike to work or take a bus. Most Americans could, they just don't want to.

I've basically given up hope of climate change being avoided. It's classic game theory. We're better off cooperating, but in practice we're all personally better off if we don't.

This is my reasoning exactly.

So let's push it even further, looking for solutions.

1/Ban coal, petrol and gas power plants in the western countries as soon as possible, pushing for fission and renewable+storage, whichever is faster and can give us the most GWh per $ (spoiler: it's fission). Fusion is too far off and renewable+storage are not ready, too expensive and demand too much land and materials to work at scale, over seasons.

2/Start to put import tax on products from carbon-emitting countries, in proportion to the carbon they emit per GDP $.

That's it, solution found! Yeah!

Of course it's not going to fly because politics and status quo and existing interests.

It’s also not going to fly because it is extremely naive to the economic impacts your plan would have

Exactly. That is why no politician is pushing for it.

Until climate change stings enough that people would bear the cost.

Or society collapse (but I doubt it at this point).

I think it's a bit premature and depressing to give up now. If the developed world pioneers effective and affordable green technologies, the developing world has every incentive to adopt them. India and China have much more to lose from climate change than the US and Europe. Some of their heavily populated regions may become literally unlivable as the temperature rises.

I don't think China dictator(s) care much about some part of the country becoming properly unlivable (if we talk about temperature that's centuries anyway). If all relies on this part, it will fail. These regimes view population as disposable tools.

That being said, even west has a lot to lose. Right now where I live its 38 with high humidity, which is a number I don't recall, ever, in past 12 years. You go to alpine glaciers and they are melting right in front of your eyes this summer, big holes in it, drop in thickness 10-30m compared to year ago, rivers flowing on it and many ascents of the mountains are outright forbidden. Old folks die like flies in these situations.

The point is that, investments into the climate technology achieves two goals:

- makes the West less dependent on energy imports which mostly come from hostile or potentially hostile countries, that use the money received mainly to subvert and undermine the West itself

- develop the technology to the point it will become cheaper than fossils (which is already achieved in some areas and is probably less than 10 years away from becoming the case in all of them), after which even the poorest countries will adopt them, just because it will be saving money

'We' can absolutely influence global warming caused by developing nations' emissions. Look at the trajectory of industrial pollution per capita in the developed world - it started low, but as industrialization catalyzed by fossil fuels took off, it crept up exponentially. When this was happening, the developing world was not even on the development trajectory, as most of it was reeling from colonialism or other ills.

Shift to now, the developed world has offset quite a significant bit of the per-capita emissions by purchasing carbon credits from the developing world in the name of helping them grow, or simply shifting expensive manufacturing to these countries where it gets counted as their emissions and their problem.

So, what do we do? First, simplify the accounting so that there is a very clear and direct overview. Today, you have billionaires flying around in jets, but still not showing up as large scale emitters since they can afford enough credits to look at it as a minor inconveniencing tax.

Secondly, we need to make green energy affordable (just the way the fossils were dirt cheap for the developed world) for these countries by using economies of scale - deploy green energy generation in the developed world which would make it cheaper. Where does better accounting come in? When your manufacturing based emissions count as yours and not the developing world's you will have an incentive to pay more to also offset the emissions, instead of just shifting physical manufacturing.

I do agree that small scale individual sacrifices are mostly useless, as there's just little efficiency in doing smaller things than making huge changes on a more scalable level. You could give up flying for an entire year, but if you only fly 10 times a year, that's still less than a billionaire not flying private just once.

We need more accountability. We have the technology, the solutions, but we lack in accountability.

> biggest contributors to climate change and pollution are developing nations that use carbon based energy (ie coal plants in China, Russia, India, etc).

Apparently, the 5 countries that produce the most CO₂ are, in order:

1. China

2. The United States

3. India

4. Russia

5. Japan

https://net0.com/blog/top-five-carbon-emitters-by-country

Yes, you're right, too often we do things that seem like a good idea but are actually counter-productive. (If that wasn't true we would be living in much greater comfort by now.)

E.g. those little florescent light bulbs? Worse for the environment than incandescent, because the environmental overhead of production and waste management outweighs the benefits of the greater efficiency.

That doesn't mean that we should keep using incandescent bulbs. They are ridiculously inefficient (for one thing they put out much more heat than light. They are technically heaters that emit light as a side-effect.) It measn we have to think a little more deeply and clearly about what we're doing.

We're going to have to make some major changes if we're going to avoid disaster, and "we" here means all of us.

I agree with you, but it's also one of those things where if everyone did their part, the impact would be quantifiable. I think these things have compounding effects. The changes have to start somewhere.

In between policy with quantifiable impact and sacrifices that make us individually feel good is… politics (at least in USA).

Arguably, the more people who are comfortable making sacrifices, the more politically safe it is to pass impactful policy (on any issue but especially those that impact the future collective more than the current individuals).

I do feel your cynicism though. For me, it’s the thought that any promising solution must survive culture wars or align with the “free” market, neither of which have any consistency or urgency in 2022.

The US has 4% of the global population and 9% of coal usage

Germany has 3% of coal usage and 1% of the population

China is certainly the biggest at 51% coal and 18% population though. India per capita usage is lower but total is 11% of coal

Coal usage is also going to spike in Europe due to the gas shortages in the near term

> I think we have to weigh our sacrifices against the impact....we will bear the cost of that ban...*

I feel like part of the point of the "Ban Private Jets" movement is that the "sacrifices" and "cost" side of the equation are pretty dang low (particularly for the vast majority of folks that cannot fly private). Even for those that can fly private, the point is that other valid alternatives exist.

Banning private jets makes even more sense to me since it seems reasonably simple to regulate and enforce (given the already strict regulations around aircraft). The super-rich can always find a loophole, but this seems like an area where regulating the supply stands a good chance of driving the demand towards more climate-friendly options...

There aren’t directly substitute near equivalents for private aviation. It’s common to be able to make 6 site visits in 2 days and 1 overnight. Or fly parts from a tier 1/2 supplier to avoid a factory line shutdown.

Sure, you could make 6 site visits across a week and a half using commercial airlines, or accept a four-shift shutdown because of a parts supply issue while the parts are trucked in.

To me, those aren’t really “valid alternatives” in the most meaningful sense of that phrase.

I see quite many solutions. Delegation, that is someone local do the site visits. Or maybe some VR/AR remote presence.

And for parts maybe this supply chain crunch have proven that we should stock more stuff locally... So replacement would be ready near enough.

You don't need a luxury jet to transfer parts around, a cheap learjet with a military style barebones interior leased to a corporation won't break the spirit of this law. It's the elite getting shuttled around the planet to a Paris shopping trips before their closing the evening at a luxury restaurant in Toyko for absolutely no productive reason that's the issue.

Hell, you could even still allow hobbyists where the owner is required to be the pilot and that would still solve the primary problem

The proposal as I read it was to ban private jets, not to ban luxury-cabin private jets.

These parts are being flown on old, ugly Lear jets right now. Those are private jets.

I think you summarized it pretty well: people are getting mad at things, which really make no difference. Why is this happening? My theory is that those of us who don't have private jets secretly envy those who does. "Secretly" because I don't typically see people saying "lets ban private jets because I don't get to have one". But then climate change conveniently enters the picture, and now we can go hate on those who are more successful in life AND go virtue signalling at the same time. Win-win.

The cost of banning private jets is too frightening, too terrible to contemplate.

Jeff Bezos would have to wait in line at the airport.

Also, isn’t the US still the biggest single contributor to greenhouse gasses?

The lack of prioritized problem solving amongst the climate activist set sure does seem to imply some inconvenient questions about their motivations. Either that or their numeracy and competence.

My personal conclusion is that any "solution" which significantly limits either a) economic growth, b) national security, and/or c) personal freedoms and choice is doomed to fail. Rather, the only practicable solutions will be technological (as throughout history has always been the case).

> My personal conclusion is that any "solution" which significantly limits either a) economic growth, b) national security, and/or c) personal freedoms and choice is doomed to fail. Rather, the only practicable solutions will be technological (as throughout history has always been the case).

Banning leaded fuels or stuff harmful to the Ozone layer weren't technical solutions, and they worked, even if they restricted personal freedoms and choice, and limited economic growth through spending money on things that didn't result on growth.

There was existing, alternative tech that was a perfect substitute: unleaded fuels. There was no economic loss and no loss of choice (unleaded is a perfect substitute for the vast majority of drivers). Clearly the same is true of ozone depleting chemicals. There are viable substitutes that were created by technology. In other words, these were absolutely technological solutions.

I think these examples do point to something important: the funding and incentivizing of R&D and tech.

We have a set limit for how much carbon can be released to hit the agreed on targets. Anything a person emits over this should be reduced.

Someone eating meat 3 meals a day and flying in a private jet, is using thousands of times over this level. The average person in a developing nation is using a fraction of this. Why should they stop emitting their fraction, when the jet setter uses their thousands over budget.

Stopping private jets is a tiny tiny tiny sacrifice for people. I for one have never used one, neither has anyone I know. We can safely ban them and only a few people will feel any impact, and it will be a pretty minor one, much less than thousands and thousands of people not having lighting or refrigeration.

Ever been a fan of a pro sports team? They probably flew to some away games in a private jet.

Luckily there is a type of seat you can get on a flight for such business travel! Even better, just get the train where appropriate.

I'm pretty sure coaches are a pretty popular form of transport as well.