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> We have to find ways to sequester. And we have to find ways to live in a warmer climate. It's the most probable outcome.

This is not the only conclusion from your excellent observation. Another conclusion could be that rich nations fund green infrastructure projects in poorer countries without asking anything in return. I believe this is what the climate relief fund is about—as approved (albeit in a much too small scale) in last COP.

So far however rich nations are not only reluctant to fund infrastructure projects in other countries without anything in return—let alone green infrastructure projects—they are also reluctant to fund green infrastructure projects domestically (see e.g. Green New Deal in the US). The technology for mass carbon sequestration does not exist yet, and if it existed I bet it would follow the same prospects as current prospects of tackling the climate crisis. In short, they will not be built at the scale needed for any meaningful results.

This is often the case when you offer a technical solution to a societal or a political problem.

So the solution isn’t a real solution? You know what’s harder than carbon capture? Re-engineering human nature.

Has been done multiple times over. Successful examples include global ban on ozone depleting chemicals, multiple standards for international trade, just run of the mill law and policy, human rights, etc.

It is in human nature not to destroy our climate, it took extremely wealthy and persistent class of polluters concentrated effort for the past few decades to prevent climate actions from various governments. Human populations—most of which residing in democracies—would have loved for governments to ratify the various treaties that would have saved our climate. As it is in our nature to do so. Only inhumane action has doomed our climate.

None of that requires meaningful sacrifice in material standards of living.

Climate inaction requires tremendous sacrifice in all of our standards of living. So does taxes. It is a very human behavior to give away a little you have in order for other people to enjoy better lives. We do it all the time.

People in the developing world will not make any sacrifice to their standard of living, which is already low. To the contrary, they will insist on increasing their standard of living. For the developed world to bankroll the green infrastructure of the developing world--at a scale that allows the developing world to continue improving its standard of living, and while continuing their own green energy investment--will require people in the developing world to give away far more than "a little."

Why are you so sure that people wouldn’t agree to that? Do you see consistent polling data across generations indicating this trend? Is the popular opinion against climate relief funds in Europe? Are people in Denmark opposed to revenue from their garbage disposal/ski-hill going to climate relief in other countries? I don’t think so. And more importantly to your point, does polling suggest people are more willing to invest in carbon sequestration technology as a climate action, rather than green infrastructure in foreign countries? Show me these polls, and show me a lasting trend, and I’ll consider your point.

As a counter I’d like to offer you that the German population was ready to suffer a deeper energy crisis for harder sanctions with Russia after the Ukraine invasion. Polling was consistent, showing a willingness to accept lower standard of living, if it meant a possibility that a war fought in a poorer country would end sooner. On an individual level participants in a prisoner dilemma studies show a consistent willing to accept a worse deal if it means more people will be better off. Neither psychology nor general polling is on your side.

No, the people will accept lower standard of living just fine. The only ones who insist on anything are governments who are consistently unwilling to sacrifice the corporate profits of the rich. And here carbon sequestration works perfectly, as it will take decades for this technology to be mature and rolled out at scale, all the while corporation can keep polluting and keep turning in record profits for their shareholders. Something that people in the ”developed word“ (ugh!) actually generally oppose.

Your argument is so painfully disingenuous it hurts. Everyone from Germany to America to Denmark has democratically elected governments, and you think that the reason they prioritize businesses is “corporate profits,” rather than the things people like that are associated with corporate profits (jobs, material goods, comfortable lifestyles)?

I’m from a third world country. My family that has moved to the developed world has pretty much universally pursued a high carbon footprint lifestyle (big house in the suburbs, SUV, etc., as soon as they could afford it.

If you poll Americans, you’ll see they’re willing to spend an average of $10 per month to mitigate climate change: https://apnews.com/article/8e6baa6c2d3badeb4e91b6e6d078a5c0. Maybe it’s a little higher in Europe but not much.

That case you made about meat consumption is actually very relatable as found in a few reports went viral in China, including this one by ![guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/16/eating-u...). Twenty years ago most rural living Chinese can't afford beef at all. Twenty years later they are able, and there are like 1 billion rural people become urban in 40 years I guess (plz check source), and developed countries are already mad about stuff they predicted to happen. Trust fund solution is one helpful tool for this, yet uprising tension in India/US allies and China/Russia/Middle East/Pakistan make the plan definitely dead. It will soon to be another case of WWII U.N. that is controlled by U.S. and vetoed by U.S.S.R. for a billion times a year and not producing anything remotely close to a deal, or a compromise. Also, solar array is tremendously expensive due to regional difference, just like battery, either rare metal or lithium.

And who exactly are going to be paying for these ruinously expensive nuclear power stations for the poorer countries? Is it you and rayiner? Or perhaps you want your government to fund it through increased taxes on you?

I'm sure you wouldn't want the poor countries to pay for it themselves.

The point is that if everyone in the developed world had built more nuclear in the 1960s like France did, we wouldn’t be in such a dire situation now.

France’s CO2 emissions per capita are right around the world average. That means the rest of the developed world had done the same way as France half a century ago, we would have room to bring the whole developing world up to the same level as France while still being at the same overall CO2 output as today. And we wouldn’t have had all that extra CO2 for 60 years, giving us much more runway for the developed world to go to net zero while the developing world continues to develop.

Whenever this line of reasoning is brought up, i ask one question - what is the cost of climate change? Who will bear that cost and who will deal with the effects?

A poor country deriving energy from a nuclear power plant means that carbon isn’t being emitted for energy production over the lifetime of that nuclear plant.

Despite all the hype, no renewable technology has been able to supply a growing electrical demand anywhere in the world. Every example is small, isolated or limited in time. Renewables will eventually get there but there are countless other things we must solve before that day comes.

Meanwhile, the argument of cost is trotted out without ever considering the full impacts of climate change on the flip side.

Complete failure to answer the question of who is paying for the nuclear power plant.

Both mine and rayiner's commentary wasn't focused only on nuclear, but rather the harebrained and unrealistic doomscape narrative coming out of the West. When did it become so unpopular to point out what is most likely to happen? Because if we're placing bets, I'm gonna put my money on the developing nations not giving a flying F about emissions. Therefore, we need to think like realists and instead of idealists.

If you want to be realistic, the more realistic option is for rich nations to fund green infrastructure projects in poorer countries. It is much easier and cheaper and likelier to succeed than every nation with a GDP lower than Connecticut developing a nuclear program on their own, or for carbon sequestration to become viable.

And alas, climate relief fund—or rather a loss and damage fund—is already a thing. Approved in the last COP and already ratified by the EU. (I know, it is much weaker than real climate relief, but proves it is possible). with some European countries already with some programs in place for paying climate relief in foreign countries.

If you want to be a realist, you should commit to it, and apply it equally.

> If you want to be realistic, the more realistic option is for rich nations to fund green infrastructure projects in poorer countries.

It's not realistic at all for developed countries to bankroll green infrastructure in the developed world at a scale that allows those developing countries to continue 6-8% GDP growth annually.

So you want your government to subsidize nuclear energy in other countries?

IF we don't choose to build the expensive ones we'll never learn how to make cheaper ones, it is the cycle of every technology. Nuke development in the West has been stymied for generations by pearl clutchers.

> ruinously expensive You just disqualified yourself from any argument there. Nuclear power is the cheapest and most efficient form that we have ever found. Yes, the upfront cost may be huge but loans can help with that

You really have no idea of costs. Nuclear is by far the most expensive. Well, ok, gas became equally expensive with the Ukraine war but it had to quadruple in price to get there.

If nuclear was more expensive China wouldn’t be building it. It’s stupid western regulations that make nuclear expensive.

China builds it because they are putting government money towards it, rather than allowing private companies to build infrastructure that can make themselves a profit.

Now, I do understand why China works that way, and I also get why Western companies can use this to funnel taxpayer money to their friends, but I don't get why someone like you would support either of these ideas?

If you ignore all the costs, yes, the costs are low.

Reality is geographically, poor global south likely to bear higher brunt of climate change, while many in northern regions will be net benefitiaries. But poverty immediately sucks more than climate change, hope is that development via whatever means will uplift more than a few degrees dooms. How many people in developed north would trade their inhospitable winters in heated homes for being impoverished in more fair weathered country. None, because they learned to live with the cold.

I don’t know if all you wrote about is going to be a problem in the way you see it. The developing world has jumped/skipped some of the development the west/rich nations experienced and just adapted the latest technology.

A good example of this is communication technology. In wealthy nations, there was all of this wired infrastructure put in place since the advent of the telegraph. In developing nations, they just skipped all of that and most people have cellphones. Maybe not iphones or even smartphones, but the banks they used developed robust texting protocols, from what I’ve read and heard about, where people could do banking transactions from something like those old nokia dumbphones.

A lot of these developing countries rely on China, maybe to the wests collective chagrin, and China has invested heavily in rail infrastructure in a lot of these countries, and, Chinese auto manufacturers are already producing tons of electric vehicles. Guess whose car companies are building auto factories in a lot of the developing world? And though they may not meet the safety and quality standards of wealthy countries, people in developing countries are just happy to get places quicker than by foot. I may not have listed everything that emits greenhouse gases and a suitable replacement but normalizing mass transit (I forgot to mention the electric buses I’ve read these developing countries are either ordering from china or building at home in Chinese factories), but these two… industries make up a significant chunk of problematic emissions.

What I think we may see in the west is active resistance to adapting new energy and normalizing greener behavior because of things like American exceptionalism. Also, these technologies are expensive to buy for many people even in the west (right, not most people here on hackernews), and its going to be prohibitively expensive for people in old housing stock to upgrade their property and municipalities to upgrade infrastructure. Tax rebates on $35,000 electric cars and heat pumps aren’t going to mean much to people relying on older family members for a roof over their head and can’t find jobs, especially if this whole ai thing takes off. There’s also significant and continual pushback from an people who seem determined to trash electric cars and such, and thats exacerbated by corporations acting bad faith to maximize profit (high efficiency appliances that barely make it through their standard warranty terms and subscription based car features come to mind.

So yeah, I think the developing world might be fine but its the wealthy nations who are going to screw themselves (and because of the US’ voracious consumption if everything), and maybe the rest of the world regardless of what steps the developing world takes.

You can’t really give many more examples than wireless. There is no way to make concrete that uses much less energy. No way to make steel. No way to heat or cool your home without using a lot of energy. No way to move yourself around to more than bicycle distance without expending vast amounts of energy on building infrastructure, vehicles (cars or trains), and powering them.

If the poor billions are to have any chance to live in any kind of comfort resembling what wealthy westerners or Asians do, they need to massively increase their energy consumption. There is no wireless way around it.

Worth looking at in this context is how the USA robbed us of the Kyoto protocol, which very much had the potential to at the very least give us longer time to roll out the needed changes. USA’s excuse back in 1997 was that it was unfair that developing nations were exempt. Looking back on it, I believe this was only an excuse forwarded by government from the fossil fuel industry. If not for US exceptionalism, they would have found another excuse and destroyed our climate anyway.