• @k_o_t@lemmy.ml
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    12 years ago

    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

    • @nutomic@lemmy.ml
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      02 years ago

      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).

      • @k_o_t@lemmy.ml
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        12 years ago

        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