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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

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?

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