Their excuse is that rich countries have not followed through with the money that was promised.
Rich countries promised $100B climate change mitigation and adaptation but have not kept that promise.
Rich countries promised $100B climate change mitigation and adaptation but have not kept that promise.
- Decreasing per capita emissions in the US starting in 1973 (-27%)
- A decrease in the countries emission starting in 2007 (-13%)
Meanwhile for the same period China has had
- a 7x increase per capita since 1973 (+532%)
- 48% increase for its global emissions since 2007
So it is possible to drastically reduce our carbon footprint thanks to innovation and smarter power generation.
Time to add tariffs on goods produced by states who made the decision of going all-in on polluting power generation, and potentially apply immigration quotas to citizens of these countries.
[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/26/us-leads-greenhouse-gas-emis...
Never mind the fact that you can modernize in a way that isn't environmentally destructive, mind you. I've seen this happen on HN multiple times w/r/ to mentioning China's environmental policies
The thing is, from the planet's perspective, per-capita or whatever made-up metric don't matter.
A ton of CO2 is a ton of CO2 no matter what.
Really no good reason not to at this point. Its demonstrably beneficial from less pollution to lower overall emissions, and builds up a "next gen" of expertise that will be extremely valuable over the next century, whoever gets these investments done will be in a great place over the next century relative to those who are later to the game, and that expertise will be very valuable (and a huge engine for economic growth).
Go where the puck is moving, not where it is.
Climate change "matters" in relation to it being an anthropocene problem, and the only way to make it matter to humans requires using metrics that can be coordinated around.
What these posters don't understand (and I'm sure certain are paid not to understand it [0]) is that the West didn't have the luxury to just be able to import environmentally friendly technologies and industrial processes from somewhere else; it had to bootstrap itself from nothing.
China gets a higher percentage of its electricity from renewable than the US. China's EV market share is 34%. China's emissions per PPP$ are dropping at a rate faster than US's are.
Could China do better? Absolutely. But those in glass houses shouldn't be throwing stones.
Usually these are two different sets of people. But people tend to assign an homogenous identity to all China critics. In fact, I don't think anyone is really complaining about Chinese solar panels beyond dumping allegations (that they are selling them undercost to force out international competitors), battery is just another variation of pollution concerns and hoarding of rare earth minerals (which really aren't that rare). Coal plants, well, it really only affects China. My complaints about them came from living in Beijing during bad AQI days.
> But those in glass houses shouldn't be throwing stones.
I believe this phrase was coined by Kruschev when he invented the what aboutism.