China and India emit significantly less CO2 per capita than Western Europe and the US [0] - and that's ignoring the fact they do all of our manufacturing.
[0] https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-pe...
Which would be great if CO2's heat trapping properties depended on the per capita emissions of their nation of origin. Unfortunately CO2 molecules don't know where they came from and can't adjust their heat trapping properties accordingly, and instead it's about absolute amounts as ppm of the atmosphere.
But there's a silver lining for China and India - which is that even small reductions in their per capita emissions cash out as massive reductions in absolute terms.
So in terms of bang for the buck per-capita wise, they are the top candidates for emissions savings.
Unless by "buck" you mean the number of decisions that need to be made, but that's hardly the limiting factor.
Country sizes are arbitrary. With your logic if China was to split into a bunch of smaller nations their emissions wouldn't matter any more? Per-capita emissions is the only reasonable way to measure.
Or to put it a different way, if all I knew were the parts per million of carbon in the atmosphere, and all you knew were per capita consumption figures, I would know when the atmosphere was truly cooked and you wouldn't.
High emission countries/individuals are most responsible for the environmental damage, and most capable of reducing their emissions with the least impact on their living standard.
We can play semantic games with per-capita consumption, but the fact of the matter remains that even if the entirety of the planet, except China and India, went 100% carbon neutral overnight, it would still be impossible to avoid hitting catastrophic climate change thresholds due to GHG emissions from those two countries alone.
They are both countries home to a rapidly rising broad middle class, and that middle class is going to want to enjoy the spoils of materialistic consumerism (the true root cause of human-induced climate change) just as much as our grandparents did, our parents did, and we do.
Of all the countries China is doing the most to curb its emissions.
> Global annual renewable capacity additions increased by almost 50% to nearly 510 gigawatts (GW) in 2023, the fastest growth rate in the past two decades. [..] In 2023, China commissioned as much solar PV as the entire world did in 2022, while its wind additions also grew by 66% year-on-year. Globally, solar PV alone accounted for three-quarters of renewable capacity additions worldwide.
https://www.iea.org/reports/renewables-2023/executive-summar...
The western world is shifting away from China to India and the rest of Asia for manufacturing, so I think the desire for cheaper products and ‘national security’ are going to increase emissions somewhat. But even still, with the glut of renewables, and soon the glut of batteries, emissions free energy is going to be the cheapest option for manufacturing anyway
China "doing the most" to curb emissions is perfectly compatible with them "doing the most" of the actual emissions. At high enough scales, no matter what you're doing, you'll be doing "the most" of it, in both directions.
What matters at the end of the day is emissions in absolute terms.
False. They have good green PR to justify other governments funneling taxpayer money via subsidies but meanwhile they are building the most coal plants than any country and this has been only ramping up in recent years with more new fossil fuel power plants being approved year on year.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/china-responsible-for-95-of-new-...
As I've explained in another comment, adding power stations and capacity doesn't mean running 100% all year. China is using coal as peakers much like other countries use gas for this purpose. Given that China is also installing the most energy storage, it's not long (at current growth, less than 10 years) before these plants are only used in emergency situations.
> literally no one uses coal as peaker ever
While these plants might be strained by having to adjust their output, they don’t need to have a long lifespan. On the current growth curve, 10 years max and batteries have taken over.
As for China building things that are redundant, look at the ghost cities. Their local governments are incentivized to hit quotas, and it ends up with useless crap being built
I linked to sources about the number of coal plants being built before (eg https://www.carbonbrief.org/china-responsible-for-95-of-new-...), it's not controversial data.
You claimed "they are peaking plants". This is obviously wrong (how many peaking coal power plants are anywhere in the world, I'd be surprised if there's even one) and you have not provided any sources.
At any rate, the data plainly shows that the percentage share of renewable electricity in China is going up. I've never denied that coal plants are being built in China, but the data shows that China is using renewables in preference to other sources of energy, with a very clear and sustained growth rate.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-electricity-renewab...
And if you're still unconvinced, this article by Hannah Ritchie details the phenomenon much better than I can regurgitate it here.
https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/china-coal-plants
And that's it from me. Feel free to have the last word.
They ban coal burning in houses and they move plants out of big cities where tourists go but they still build more and more plants. "oh but they'll use them less surely and burn less coal" would be great but sounds rosy
> using renewables in preference to other sources of energy, with a very clear and sustained growth rate.
Note that it's for electricity. How is it calculated? If it's used to power their pump based water energy storage then does it count? If it's used to heat then does it count? Does it rely on CCP provided metrics here while pollution, coal plants and fossil burning can be measured independently (just look at satellite based pollution map)
> that middle class is going to want to enjoy the spoils of materialistic consumerism (the true root cause of human-induced climate change) just as much as our grandparents did, our parents did, and we do.
The last 3 words is key there. WE also don't want to give up those spoils. And we want to enjoy them by outsourcing their production to the cheapest places and cheapest methods, like unsafe mining of minerals done by underpaid children. But hey, it's not happening in our country, so we're fine?
If a phone is made with minerals mined using safe Western mining standards, and made by factory workers earning decent wages, and it's CO2 neutral, and so on, it'll be more expensive, and will not sell well, because as long as there's another country producing the same phone but without all those "external" costs, the consumer will say "Look, this phone has the exact same specs but is way cheaper!".
In reality it is government's choice, to go for short term riches and maintaining power or act more ethically and think long term. And consumers pay more all the time for things like "no slave labour" (idk how well it's enforced, I just say it's a value), "ethically sourced materials", "recycled", "no spying malware", blahblahblah, just look at Android vs iPhone.
On average, the "sane" choice is to go for the cheapest option, or turn a blind eye to the child labor, etc.
Sure, some people want to live ethically and minimize their emissions, but there's not enough of them.
> In reality it is government's choice, to go for short term riches and maintaining power or act more ethically and think long term.
Yeah, Macron tried to tax fuel more and there were widespread protests by "average French citizen", and he got metaphorically beaten up in the last election. The EU incumbents watered down green projects because of fear of losing to the rightwing populists. It's the sane choice for them to make, because I'd rather be governed by the somewhat sane center-right than lying manipulative populist hard-right, but the sane choice meant stepping away from the path of an ecological future. The summary is, if you try to be ethical, you get voted out of office, god bless democracy! /s
People choose option with maximum utility and it's never as simple as "cheapest" (see iPhones, "vegan cars" etc etc)
> Macron tried to tax fuel more and there were widespread protests
Many people would support the government making green choices. They are not the kinds of people who would go about ransacking streets. Most affected are probably farmers. Also, European taxes on fuel are already bigger than generally in the world, democracy is OK
> if you try to be ethical, you get voted out of office
Remember we are talking about China right?
No, but even if the US and Western Europe went net zero, that's still not enough to offset global GHG emissions coming out of China to prevent catastrophic climate change.
If you, a wealthy westerner, want to tell billions of people in China to stop enjoying middle class luxuries for the first time because it's bad for the environment, be my guest. I have no such desire.
Show me the math/source, if you want to claim this, please. US and W. Europe outsource their emissions because they buy their electronics and clothes from e.g. China and Bangladesh. What is a US/WE net zero? They stop buying Chinese product, and China stops producing them for US/WE?
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-co2-per-capit...
Whether it's forced, it seems like a philosophical question about economics. Do you go to work willingly, or because you're forced to, because you want to be able to afford food, housing, and iPhone 17?
Or it's a tragedy of the commons scenario. If there's demand, and Neighboristan is able to but doesn't supply it, their citizens are forced by government to give up sources of income; meanwhile the citizens of We-Also-Build-iPhones-And-Make-Cheap-Shirts-ia are raking the money in and travelling around the world and taking selfies of their steak meals with their iPhones, and citizens of Neighboristan will get jealous and think "Why can't we do that?". And they'll either vote in a government that will allow this, or revolt.
And consumers in the West enable this behavior by wanting the cheapest bang for the buck. If China charges for CO2, your cheap Walmart toy gets more expensive, and you don't buy it, Walmart will say "we'll find a supplier in Vietnam/India/etc where there's no such CO2 fees."...
Yes, part of it is consumer choice (and yes some consumers do choose to not buy if they think it supports environmental damage or such) but it's wrong to pretend one side is the one who makes all the choices and the other side is powerless to resist because it's convenient for your argument.
> because everything's produced in the neighboring country
Unless the first country dictates neighbouring country's policies, not sure it's that relevant.
> it seems like a philosophical question about economics. Do you go to work willingly, or because you're forced to, because you want to be able to afford food, housing, and iPhone 17?
Either there's freedom of choice or not. This logic can go to "I should deceive people or dump waste into rivers or use slave labour, because market & I want to afford a new fancy yacht or invade a country". Yes, I can choose not to work or do different work that is more or less friendly to environment and I use an old iPhone.
> their citizens are forced by government to give up sources of income There's unlimited hypotheticals. Should we say we are forced to give up sources of income if they involve crime or morally wrong things that are discouraged?
> And consumers in the West enable this behavior by wanting the cheapest bang for the buck.
"Enabling" can be used to justify anything or assign any guilt. It's a bit narcissistic. It reminds me of "America started the war in Ukraine" a little.
> Or it's a tragedy of the commons scenario.
I agree there is some tragedy of the commons here.
Any estimate of how much that constitutes? Like if US and EU had to produce themselves all the stuff they now get from China, how would their CO2 emissions change?
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-co2-embedded-in-tra...
Trade adjusted emissions per capita
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-co2-per-capit...
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-ghg-emissions?...
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-co2-per-capit...
India has also decreased extreme poverty, down to 2% in 2023. At $3.20/day, they declined to 21%. At $5.50, they are at 81%. Most people are poor, but less poor than they were.
On the other hand, there's no reason to think that an increase in the number of countries is a valid excuse to increase emissions.
It's true that if a country splits into two countries, that doesn't give them a right to emit more collectively. However, it does mean that each country now has little control over what the other one does, and less ability to actually solve the collective problem we want solving, which was the objective here.
I’m not sure how better to dice up emissions then by consumption per person, and by that measure the US is clearly emitting the most
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-co2-per-capit...
Conversely China is doing the most about emissions
> China commissioned as much solar PV as the entire world did in 2022, while its wind additions also grew by 66% year-on-year.
https://www.iea.org/reports/renewables-2023/executive-summar...
But why do you want to "slice up" emissions at all, if you're interested in reducing them? The problem is a big load of gas. So identify the biggest emitters (in total volume) with the most control over it. Don't say "oh San Marino, you're a really greedy country, with all your tax haven shenanigans and conspicuous consumption and more cars than people, you're the problem", because they really aren't. They may be really awful, but that wasn't the question and isn't something it's viable to fix, nor are they capable of helping more than minutely, unlike a giant authoritarian state with giant emissions, capable of helping a lot. And perhaps, as you point out, already doing so.
Yep. And their coal plants are less and less needed. They are essentially becoming peakers (in the same manner as many modern gas plants) for when the sun don't shine and the wind stops blowing. But in terms of the biggest producers of coal, Australia punches above its weight, but rarely does anyone single it out in these discussions. They also are the second biggest per-capita consumers in terms of CO2 emissions.
Our (Australia's) fuckwit right-wing politicians love to blame climate change on China and the USA, because their absolute emissions are way higher than ours and "we emit less than 1% of the world's emissions" so us taking the first step is pointless (says THEM).
Also, because our coal is relatively clean they say that stopping coal mining would actually make emissions worse, because then everyone would just switch to much more polluting foreign coal.
Every American in this thread who says "<China/India> have the most emissions, they need to reduce their CO2 output" needs to understand that the same logic can be and is used against them to justify us doing fuck-all about the climate. Stop enabling our fuckwits!
I'd say that per capita emissions is a reasonable measure of scoring how much a country and its people are doing to make climate change worse (or better). And, while not perfectly so, it does a reasonable job as being an actionable metric for how sustainable a country's standard of living is. "America (14.4 t/cap/yr) should try to be more like Japan (8.6 t/cap/yr)" is a reasonable take on how the US can reduce its per-capita emissions, and what changes might take it there. "America (4.8 Gt/yr) should try to be more like the United Arab Emirates (220 Mt/yr)" ends up being rather bad advice.
And while the standard of living in Iceland is quite nice, I doubt that there's any practical way that either China or the United States could reduce their emissions to that level (3.5 Mt/yr) in the short term without millions of people starving to death in the process. It wouldn't be realistic or fair for Iceland to demand that the US cut its emissions to Icelandic levels on an absolute basis (but very fair and reasonable to demand that the US cut to Icelandic levels on a per-capita basis).
In terms of how much responsibility a government has, well... certainly governments that govern more people do have more leverage, and with larger total emissions, there are more opportunities to cut. But if there is any non-zero level that we may consider an acceptable emissions target, surely this level should be proportional to a country's population. And when it comes to international agreements, it's reasonable to ask China and India to make cuts, and it's very reasonable for China and India to say "OK we'll make cuts, but we expect small rich countries like Canada to pull their weight, and if they don't, we won't either".
And when that happens, per-capita emissions is the only sensible way to gauge if those countries are pulling their weight.
There are, after all, a lot of countries, and while the top four (China, US, India, Russia) emit 57% of the total, the rest emit the other 43% of that total, with no single country among them emitting over 2.9%. Even cutting China, the US, India, and Russia's emissions to zero would only cut global emissions in about half, and that's really still not enough to solve the problem, so the little countries will have to pitch in.
https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/population-and-demograp...
It seems that many people in the comments are set on demonizing the country. For this I think better points to raise are the ethnic cleansing of the Uyghur 'reeducation' program, or the usurping of peaceful autonomous neighbors like Tibet and Hong Kong (maybe Taiwan later). But none of this has anything to do with obligations around CO2 emissions, which they are addressing more than any country on the planet, as I've commented elsewhere: