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You can wax poetic all you want about anecdotal values differences between the first and third worlds, but speaking in terms of actual practical impact: what you are saying is simply not true. Greenhouse gas emissions scale super-linearly with income: https://www.iea.org/commentaries/the-world-s-top-1-of-emitte...

There are dozens and dozens of studies all reaching this same conclusion, if the International Energy Agency isn't good enough for you: https://www.google.com/search?q=greenhouse+gas+emissions+by+...

OP's point was that the global rich (most US citizens included) have lifestyles and patterns of consumption which produce an outsized amount of greenhouse gasses, and any attempts to alter those behaviors are routinely met with anger and political backlash

Yeah and my point is that these studies look at energy consumption they don’t take into account things like burning yard waste or plastic garbage into their co2 consumption which is often done daily to keep mosquitoes away and from laziness. Nor does it look at air pollution nor waterways pollution. So it’s a useless metric that doesn’t even have accurate data or tell the real story.

What will we do when these societies who give no fucks about the environment (compared to the west) get wealthier?

White guilt is not going to save anyone

I don't think proposing cutting CO2 emissions is "white guilt" -- I probably missed something, I'm not sure how race entered it. (and I don't mean that snarky! I probably missed it :) )

I'm also unsure if "White guilt" is a good descriptor for the West enforcing emission cuts by force on not-West: that sounds like aggression as opposed to an expression of guilt.

The fun/exciting part: a total mind-bender on this is not-West countries are installing renewables at scale without incentives or "[any color] guilt", solar is cheaper than any other supply you can think of.

Then we can start talking about "solar isn't enough because unreliable", true.

Then maybe we start talking about how it's racist to prevent people from having unreliable electricity, true, but rest-assured, the idea of enforcing cuts on other nations isn't on the table.

To avoid the tarpit of moralizing, I try to stay focused on saying "they're installing solar panels and it's cool if they gotta do coal/tires/etc. while we 10x batteries again like we did last decade" --- this also has the benefit of matching the uncoordinated reality as it stands

This doesn't take into account that countries like the US have already cut emissions and emissions have been declining for years. Meanwhile, China has much greater total emissions than the US does and emissions in China are increasing per year continuously as they are in India. Total global emissions are what matters for the climate. Although reducing waste and being more efficient are always helpful, fixating on lifestyles of people like US citizens is not particularly useful.

Source? (AFAIK it does, and it'd be very unexpected for it not to. The rest of the comment is unclear to me. I may be reading it as a strawman instead of a steelman -- would a reply like: 'just because our derivative is negative doesn't mean on a per-capita basis we're less' be accurate? I'm sure I missed something)

Source for what? That emissions are declining in the US?

You can find some details here https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indica... I am surprised you didn't know this already.

Here is China https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.KT?location...

It doesn't take into account trends that already exist. In the next decade small reductions to emissions in US transportation per year will be meaningless. Also reducing agricultural emissions which are only 10% of CO2 emissions in the US will have little affect on total global emissions. I'm not sure why there is so much hand waving about the CO2 emissions of China alone.

> Source for what?

"This doesn't take into account that countries like the US have already cut emissions and emissions have been declining for years."

> You can find some details here https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indica... I am surprised you didn't know this already.

This being US / 1st world emissions are decreasing? Thank you for looking that up etc., I appreciate it -- I did know that, and seriously, thank you for taking the time to source it: I'm only saying I knew so you can rest assured at least one other person is up on data. These are strange times and it's hard to get a read on if facts are common knowledge or not, and our estimate of that can cause intense feelings.

Putting my comment more simply and extending it so it doesn't feel like I'm passive-aggressively quoting my comment back at you:

I'm curious why we think the per-capita emissions data "isn't accounting for it decreasing"

What I am taking issue with is the assertion from the other poster that "Greenhouse gasses scales super-linearly with income" which links to a page. That page looks at one year, 2021, and makes assertions that don't account for annual trends like the decrease in emissions the US has been experiencing for years and will continue to experience. The US _IS_ reducing emissions. It also doesn't take into account the large expected increases over just say the next decade in countries like China.

Total global emissions are an important factor to consider for the global climate and focusing only on reducing emissions of the US will be meaningless because total global emissions will still continue to go up.

edit: thanks for clarifying btw and here is trends in total global emissions found on the page https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emiss...

Your link has the Chinese top decile with higher emissions than the EU top decile, so your "what you are saying is simply not true" seems incorrect, their central point of value differences and higher pollution in third world countries seems to stand up well.

"But it's you reduce the economy, think of what it will do to the poor!" it's incredible how ritch people will happily push the poor in front of them when it's beneficial.

The fact is "emmisions per capita" is heavily correlated with "gdp per capita": https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co2-emissions-vs-gdp

The "educated people in western countries [who] are incredibly eco-conscious" emit way more co2 than "85% of the worlds population".

What does “per capita” emissions have to do with the physics of climate change?

It's related to the comment I was replying to:

> Meanwhile, educated people in western countries are incredibly eco-conscious, have excellent modern waste management, have amazing huge national parks and conservation areas, clean waterways or have nets to prevent plastics entering the oceans.. are 'banning' gasoline cars by 2030.. and the air quality! Amazing.

The commenter appears to say that people in western countries are already doing a good job on climate. Even though those people emit way more than people from other countries.

The Chinese emit more per capita than the Europeans.

Yes, if you count the emissions for the stuff manufactured in China for (not only) european customers.

If you look at consumption-based emissions[0], China is at 7 t per capita, which is 8 t less than the US, 2 t less than Germany and about par with Denmark, Slovakia, and England.

0: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-co2-per-capit...

This is per capita data again, which makes the argument circular. In absolute terms, China emits more than twice as much CO2 as the next producer, and only a small fraction of that is exported.

Per capita data makes sense. CO2 emissions don’t change if we cut giants countries into many smaller ones. If China was 25 different countries you wouldn’t be pointing the finger to them.

Why shouldn’t the highest emitters not be the ones to reduce most?

Because we're not having a moral argument but rather a practical one. The fact is that China emits much more CO2 than other countries, even after you account for exports (ie, CO2 emissions "offshored" from Europe and North America). Moreover: while emissions in the west are falling, the are rising in China and India and the developing world, as they must, because they track rising standards of living.

I don't understand the "25 smaller Chinas" argument. China sets statewide emissions policies. That's a reason we pay attention to country borders here, rather than considering an undifferentiated mass of humanity as a map scatterplot.

Ultimately, the reason to point out the gap between China and Europe or North America is that if you concentrate climate mitigation strategies on the west, you won't actually do much to solve the crisis. Fair's got nothing to do with it.

There's no reason to argue about this. Everyone agrees that

1) China needs to cut more emissions in total.

2) The US/West needs to cut more emissions per capita.

Only in the most abstract sense, because the real debate is over prioritization; if you suggest that equal effort be put into both of these projects, reasonable people will argue that you're misallocating effort.

Different people have to do (1) and (2), so it's not really a prioritization question.

But if both groups argue that the other group has to do their part first, or they won't act, then nothing will get done.

I think the world would benefit if western nations had a carbon levy on imports as well as a carbon tax on domestically-produced goods. Or, with the added costs, market forces would encourage people to find more efficient lifestyles. If someone wanted a more environmentally-taxing lifestyle, they could play the fair cost.

The calculations are infeasible expensive for most goods, you'd almost shut down trade.

Either that or its a flat rate per good which just becomes yet another import tax.

That import tax is worthwhile if it reduces emissions in the right areas. We should probably be eating less beef shipped out of Austrlia and producing less plastic packaging.

Some trade does need to be shut down, as the externalities aren't being properly handled at the moment.

According to this next page, in 2021 the "EU27" emitted 2774.93 megatons of co2 whereas China emitted 12466.32. Also, European emissions are falling whereas China's is rising.

https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/report_2022#emissions_table

Per capita, EU27 is at 6.25 whereas China is at 8.73 whereas the US is at 14.24:

https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/report_2022?vis=pop#emissions...

Nothing.

But it doesn’t matter. What matters is that nobody is prepared to willingly let go of their conveniences. They may say they are but they haven’t seen the real cost to their lifestyle.

The transition is politically impossible. You’ll see some kind of populist revolution happen in Germany, which on paper seems to be the leader in green policies.

Why is the physics of climate the sole criterion for discussing an economic issue?

What's incredible is missing the fact that CO2 emissions and most kinds of pollution in general are verifiably multiples higher per individual in the West compared to elsewhere. We're just better at keeping them out of sight and apparently out of mind, too.

Personal responsibility for environmental issues is a fiction peddled by the biggest polluters.

The moment you think an individual is going to make any sort of a difference through minor changes in behavior, you have already lost the plot.

Thank you. Climate change is a diplomacy issue, nothing the west is going to do in the next 50 years will make a difference with what’s going on in china and elsewhere.

So either you are a realist about this problem, and you admit that either it’s war with many countries to solve this issue, or it won’t be solved (because they won’t stop economic growth for carbon emissions). Possible alternatives are technology.

But guilt tripping the west and stopping people eating steak will. Not. Make. A. Difference.

USA emits almost 8 times more C02 when compared to India per capita. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita

In that sense India would need to be 10B+ people to poluate as much as US / west does.

Again these studies don't take into account things like burning, air pollution, waterways pollution, nor trees per capita in India vs North America.

If you've got enough trees per person to offset their carbon use, then it doesn't matter how much co2 they emit.

Except per capita co2 emissions AND total emissions have been falling in the USA.

China now emits more co2 than europe and USA combined. And this is NOT because of exports to the west, those are now also falling yet co2 emissions are still climbing.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co2-emissions-per-...

This is what I mean. Just these two countries like india and china are emitting so much CO2, that any reduction in emissions by the west by not eating steak just won't matter. Either you stop china doing this (good luck!) or think of another solution.

I think it's actually more complicated, because a lot of the construction, etc. is caused by demand from the western countries. Also, western countries consume proportionately more flights, cars, electronics... pretty much all the actual major industry-sized consumption is disproportionately consumed by the west, even if a portion of individual westerners (certainly not all) are eco-conscious, no-waste, plastic-free vegans.

the point is that if it's that vs. the oceans consuming continents, it's probably not that big a deal BY COMPARISON. stop virtue signaling.