It's not much, but its way better that most lifestyle changes (avoiding transatlantic flights, recycling, vegetarianism), and personally helps me feel like I am part of the solution rather than the problem.
Those paying the price will be the children of both nations.
Wrong. German (and US!) CO2 output is declining Chinese has risen drastically.
There is no equivalence here. China is doing nothing to reduce CO2 emissions, putting them on equal footing with the US/Europe is lying.
Meanwhile, your equivalent in China is pointing that US CO2 emissions per capita are still way above China’s, cherry-picking the right metric to avoid any responsibility.
Also, as a European person myself don’t talk to me about Germany and Climate. Germany is a fucking joke and the worst example of a Climate friendly policy due to their rejection of nuclear. https://app.electricitymaps.com/map
Couldn't agree more. Funnily enough the single most important reason Germany abandoned nuclear is because of the Green party, which promotes itself as the climate party. That they singlehandidly returned Germany to coal power (the actual policy was enacted by the CDU, but was 100% the result of decade long anti-nuclear activism by the Green party) does not seem to matter. Germany has now fully left nuclear power under a Green "Economy and Climate" minister, the sane alternative would have meant an enormous loss of face for that party.
If this does not tell you that there will never be a politcal solution to the problem I don't know what to say.
Man, isn't it handy that the opposition party is at fault for what the party in power does? Those evil Greens just forced the CDUs hand, they had no choice (except for their actual power in the government, but why count that?).
Per head? China has roughly 9 tons per capita and the US has 14-15 tons per capita.
So even if the US cut their emissions by a third China would still be more resourceful there. We have to do more to reduce our carbon footprint because we have such a huge footprint.
If we forget all about politics for a moment and look at the problem in an abstract fashion: Isn't it resonable that the worst offenders have to cut their emissions to a level that matches the upcoming countries before we can demand something from others?
"You can pump as much CO2 in the atnosphere until we reach per capita parity, then you must reduce it as well" is an absurdist stance to take. Nobody who takes climate change seriously can believe that.
The issue there is that both are right in a certain way. We need to get the absolute emissions down, but to do so fairly the worst emitters per capita should commit to the biggest savings.
Now if both stiffly insist on their position we end up worse off in the long term than if one just gave in.