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Comment by modernpink | Hacker News Reader

The focus in climate change discourse seems to be all about prevention when we've clearly been headed on course for worst case scenario several degree rise the whole time. Emissions have not even peaked yet with China, India and the rest of the third world essentially outdoing all the progress the first world has made over the past decades. Not to mention the coming surge in population of Africa in the coming decades who will all want material lifestyles for themselves.

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In Germany, the richest 10% of the population is producing 50% of the CO2.

At the world level, the richest 1% is producing double of the poorest 50%.

We should not talk about the increase coming from other countries, we should already start with us reducing our impact and adapt. The problem is that we all have/find good excuses not to change our behavior.

It’s trivial to show that doesn’t solve the problem.

China together with India account for 35% percent of the world's CO2 emissions, I think it is fair to complain about them a bit.

That's less than their population share though.

yes, because vast swaths of these countries live in extreme poverty, not because of environmental consciousness.

we are talking about people who swim next to corpses in the ganges river.

>> We should not talk about the increase coming from other countries, we should already start with us reducing our impact and adapt.

[China and India CO2 impact is less than their population's share]

> because vast swaths of these countries live in extreme poverty, not because of environmental consciousness.

This injects a judgement that I think is irrelevant. The impact on the environment does not depend on the REASON. It depends only on the ACTION.

Frankly, with that lead in, I am surprised the above poster did not go on to say: "We should focus on preparing to survive a massive climate change." That was certainly my take-away from the argument.

About equal to it. China and India each have about 1.4 billion people, the world about 8 billion, and 2.8/8 = 0.35

If you look at cumulative emissions, they are also much smaller fraction.

Also china produces goods for consumption of west so there is a majority of emissions just exported to china but really should be in developed nation's bucket.

Material lifestyles are fine.

Fossil carbon is not.

China and India have net zero goals, just like the USA.

What part of them are you worried about specifically?

https://www.unpri.org/pri-blog/the-net-zero-transition-in-ch...

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