what’s the point of listing historic emissions from the 1800s?
the focus should be on reducing emissions for everyoneright now, regardless of their past emissions, bc that shit is already in the atmosphere, there’s nothing that can be done about it, and using past emissions as some sort of gotcha to justify not doing anything about climate change is one of the worst things you can do
It means that rich western countries need to be the first to reduce emissions. Right now they are mainly lecturing developing countries without taking real action.
not only do rich western nations need to reduce emissions, but developing nations need to correct their course as to not go through the immensely inefficient industrialization route that current rich western nations took
everyone needs to change, not just western rich countries
Development always produces emissions, through construction, industry, transport etc. There are some potential solutions to reduce these emissions, but so far its still theoretical, and not even used at scale by rich countries. So if poor countries arent allowed any emissions, they can never develop more (which might even be the goal of rich countries, so they can keep their status forever).
There are some potential solutions to reduce these emissions, but so far its still theoretical
since the industrial revolution we have not only invented a lot of things but also identified certain harmful policies, and with inventions and policies-to-avoid in mind, countries can develop with a lot less emissions than current western countries did, and most likely with a higher quality of life per amount of emissions
for example, in terms of harmful-policies-to-avoid, we learned that subsidising a vegan diet and eliminating car dependency in urban planning not only eliminates a ton of emissions, but also increases quality of life; these two things can be easily incorporated into spending/planning policies of any country without any additional investment or technological breakthroughs
electricity generation using solar panes and wind turbines is now cheaper than conventional electricity generation with fossil fuels, so developing countries can to a large degree avoid relying on the latter, but this does require some investment and technological innovation in order to happen (something western nations could help with)
there’s also probably a lot of other similar aspects which would be easily optimized but that i don’t know about
so all in all, there are certainly unavoidable emissions that come with development and quality of life improvements, but developing countries can avoid a lot of these emissions with either no/little investment and technological improvements
One issue is that the countries lecturing newly industrializing nations are doing absolutely nothing to decrease their own emissions. They’re happy to export production and act as a monopsony, putting all the pressure to fix climate change on the poorer nations who don’t have anywhere near the same amount of wealth to invest in costlier and more eco friendly production techniques. Who’s more to blame, western finance capital demanding low prices for garments at any costs, while hypocritically demanding that someone else pay to fix climate change, or the bangladeshi small capitalist who’s trying to bring some value into their country in any way they can?
You can even look at current CO2 emissions per capita, and see that some of the richest countries on earth are still currently the biggest polluters. And we can’t ignore the historical legacy of theft and environmental destruction which gives them absolutely no room to talk.
what’s the point of listing historic emissions from the 1800s?
the focus should be on reducing emissions for everyone right now, regardless of their past emissions, bc that shit is already in the atmosphere, there’s nothing that can be done about it, and using past emissions as some sort of gotcha to justify not doing anything about climate change is one of the worst things you can do
It means that rich western countries need to be the first to reduce emissions. Right now they are mainly lecturing developing countries without taking real action.
isn’t this a false dichotomy?
not only do rich western nations need to reduce emissions, but developing nations need to correct their course as to not go through the immensely inefficient industrialization route that current rich western nations took
everyone needs to change, not just western rich countries
Development always produces emissions, through construction, industry, transport etc. There are some potential solutions to reduce these emissions, but so far its still theoretical, and not even used at scale by rich countries. So if poor countries arent allowed any emissions, they can never develop more (which might even be the goal of rich countries, so they can keep their status forever).
since the industrial revolution we have not only invented a lot of things but also identified certain harmful policies, and with inventions and policies-to-avoid in mind, countries can develop with a lot less emissions than current western countries did, and most likely with a higher quality of life per amount of emissions
for example, in terms of harmful-policies-to-avoid, we learned that subsidising a vegan diet and eliminating car dependency in urban planning not only eliminates a ton of emissions, but also increases quality of life; these two things can be easily incorporated into spending/planning policies of any country without any additional investment or technological breakthroughs
electricity generation using solar panes and wind turbines is now cheaper than conventional electricity generation with fossil fuels, so developing countries can to a large degree avoid relying on the latter, but this does require some investment and technological innovation in order to happen (something western nations could help with)
there’s also probably a lot of other similar aspects which would be easily optimized but that i don’t know about
so all in all, there are certainly unavoidable emissions that come with development and quality of life improvements, but developing countries can avoid a lot of these emissions with either no/little investment and technological improvements
One issue is that the countries lecturing newly industrializing nations are doing absolutely nothing to decrease their own emissions. They’re happy to export production and act as a monopsony, putting all the pressure to fix climate change on the poorer nations who don’t have anywhere near the same amount of wealth to invest in costlier and more eco friendly production techniques. Who’s more to blame, western finance capital demanding low prices for garments at any costs, while hypocritically demanding that someone else pay to fix climate change, or the bangladeshi small capitalist who’s trying to bring some value into their country in any way they can?
You can even look at current CO2 emissions per capita, and see that some of the richest countries on earth are still currently the biggest polluters. And we can’t ignore the historical legacy of theft and environmental destruction which gives them absolutely no room to talk.
https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-by-country/