Quote:
Originally Posted by acottawa
One country with 18% of the world’s population (and falling) is responsible for 27% of the world’s emissions (and rising).
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So you're concerned about disproportionate emissions (based on proportion of population, aka per capita). But apparently only when it's about China.
No mention of the country with 4.2% of the world's population that produces 14% of the world's emissions?
Or the country with 0.48% of the world's population and 1.5% of the world's emissions.
So China produces 50% more emissions than their share of population, but you're not at all concerned about the countries that produce well over 200% more than their share of the population?
Your argument to the Chinese would be, "I know you have a quarter of the per capita GDP that we do, a quarter of your population is still poor and agrarian, but really you need to cut back and keep those rural folks poor, while we do nothing, cause you know we need to get home to those McMansions in our SUVs to the waiting steaks."
For a guy who claims to be wise about geopolitics, you sure don't seem to get how that comes off.
The crazy part is that for all your deflection, the Chinese at least are trying. Yeah, they refuse to let hundreds of millions live in energy poverty and so they burn coal in the mean time. But they build and add more renewables to their grid than Europe and North America combined. They invest massive amounts in public transport so that they don't develop the car dependency that we have (or the foreign oil dependency that makes them vulnerable). And they have such a large portion of the electric vehicle market, that in some markets (like electric buses), the rest of the world is a rounding error.
They are also decently reliable at meeting targets they commit to. And they generally don't commit to targets they can't meet. So when they say they will start phasing out coal in 2026, and phasing out gas and diesel in 2035, their targets are more reliable than anything we'd ever commit to.
But hey, if we're so worried about the Chinese, let's help them cut emissions sooner. We can start by cutting all our shipments of oil and gas to them. I'm sure all the conservatives bleating about China's emissions should be down for putting their profits where their mouths are. And as I've said before, I'm more than happy to tariff Chinese imports with the same carbon tax as us. Killing off dollar stores and Walmart doesn't bother me in the least.