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Comment by joemazerino | Hacker News Reader

I have a mental blockage with the climate change argument(s). While rationally founded, the West can't just constantly handicap itself when 2nd and 1st world countries are the largest carbon emitters.

I'd like to see global opt-in rather than just constantly harping on one side of the hemisphere.

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Two things, first it depends of the western country we are talking about. Luxembourg and USA have a too high emission per capita compared to the rest.

Second, I'm not sure why you see it as a handicap, it's not you vs them? If you are worried their cheaper bad climate good can eat your market just put some carbon tax or whatever polluants we are talking about.

I'm happy to be proven wrong, but my understanding is that the atmosphere itself doesn't really care about "per capita", absolute numbers are what matters.

I'd imagine Vatican City has an even higher emission per capita than nearly anywhere else, but it would be silly to pretend that's where we should prioritize policy change.

As it stands, the one country produces more CO2 than the following 7 combined. That number is only set to increase. If our goal is a global reduction, should that not be where we focus the majority of our political energy? If Luxembourg went down to net 0 emissions, my understanding is effectively no difference would be made on a global scale.

The problem with your reasoning is that you think that the atmosphere problem is a problem that should be equally burdened by every country, whereas it should be equally burdened by every human. There is no reason that people that are inmore populated countries should be burdened more than people in less populated ones.

What if the more populated countries (ie: India and China) are the largest carbon emitters?

It doesn't have any effect on the logic. The limit of CO2 should be equal for every human being.

You could take a further step down the conspiracy path, and argue that Climate Change is how the developing East has created dependence on their materials and manufacturing.

The real solution to this is a CO2 tax at the point of goods import.

The problem is that you can't reverse 40 years of industrial change with an import tax.

But you are right, a global alliance to have consistent CO2 tax on import goods and CO2 tax in the country would fundamentally realign economic supply chains.

There are of course a whole host of practical issue with the idea but it is right in concept.

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