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Comment by drexlspivey | Hacker News Reader

Unless you get China and India on board this whole "emission reduction" feels like a giant theater.

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

Since 2006 the US reduced emissions by 1B tonnes and China added 5

How much of the increase in Indian and Chinese emissions is accounted for by increased manufacturing of products being sent to the US?

The only fair measure is per capita and both of those countries are still producing way less CO2 per person. Also China is now doing a sizeable proportion of your manufacturing.. shouldn't those emissions count against Americans?

It is imperative to make progress. The more progress we make the more we can pressure the rest of the world. This is true for all countries.

There is theater around the environment and individual and collection action, but reducing carbon release into the atmosphere is imperative. We should not strive for net zero. We should strive for net -10x.

Stop buying from them then ?

Oh wait you can't because we sacrificed most of our industries in the west

You can implement a carbon tax/tariff upon import from those economies if they are unwilling to sacrifice some of their rapid growth for the common good like the west is doing.

Much of that growth comes from the West exporting manufacturing to low cost countries to reduce costs. This of course enriches the rich and the powerful in the west by the 100%+ margins they are able to command by the above while also reducing costs for consumers in the West at the same time.

So what you really need is broad support for higher prices and possibly leadership change in the west.

Eventually emerging economies will switch to domestic consumption as the wealth driver but they're (especially China) is already well ahead on renewables as they neither produce oil, not have the military muscle just now to ensure uninterrupted supplies from elsewhere - so much so that anti dumping duties have been implemented or threatened on import of renewables from China which slows down renewables switch in the West, increases its costs and achieves the opposite of the sacrifice you mention.

So the situation is a lot more complicated :-)

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