[familysized]

What's wrong with the line about India? It's absolutely correct - per capita emissions from India are very small.

> Surely they will become an emitter at least as significant as China.

Looking at a country's total emissions makes no sense because the population needs to be taken into account. India will eventually have the largest total emissions, which is fine because per capita is really low.

[coldtea]

>India will eventually have the largest total emissions, which is fine because per capita is really low.

Earth doesn't care about "emission per capita" though, it just cares about the total sum of emissions...

So "India eventually [having] the largest total emissions" means a huge extra tonnage of emissions will be added to the already troubling amounts...

So, the per capita number is mainly relevant in regards to fairness...

[reitzensteinm]

What the Earth doesn't care about is the arbitrary lines in the sand we declare to be this nation or that.

[wtdata]

What Earth does care about, is when you decide that's a good idea to have on average more than 4 children per couple over the last 2 generations in India [1] instead of only 2 or even less children per couple like in USA or the EU [2].

[1] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/IND/india/fertility-ra...

[2] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/fert...

Every country has a set of natural resources at its disposal. It should manage and cherish those resources and not overtax them. If a country decides it's a good idea to perpetually grow their population when all they have are the same set of natural resources available, then well, the onus is on them to figure out how to do it without destroying everything.

[reitzensteinm]

You're making my point. The US went through the same process, with the same birth rate interrupted only by the great depression until two generations ago.

There aren't countries, there are humans responding to the same conditions similarly. Economic development will slow their reproductive rate, like clockwork.

If you point to a family in the 60s in the US and a family in India today and find only one of them irresponsible, your thinking is flawed.

I assume you're following through with your convictions and will remain child free?

[wtdata]

> I assume you're following through with your convictions and will remain child free?

No, I will remain with my child at replacement rate (a little below actually), like my parents and my grandparents did (and all parents and grandparents on average here), and I expect them to be entitled to a lot more resources than someone who lives in a country where (on average) their parents, grandparents and themselves didn't follow the same principle.

As a fact, India's CO2 emissions per unit area are almost the same as EU. We are using the same share of ecological resources (assuming roughly they are equivalent on average per area), so there is nothing to give or to take from both sides.

P.S.: A family in USA in the 60's, 1st: didn't had any idea that there was such thing as a catastrophic global warming incoming, 2nd: had a 4x smaller population density than India has today. But sure, go ahead and keep pretending that Earth's resources magically increase anytime someone decides to have a new child, so that you can tell yourself we are all entitles to the same amount of resources, no matter the size of our immediate family.

[reitzensteinm]

I had a hunch.

[familysized]

> Earth doesn't care about "emission per capita" though, it just cares about the total sum of emissions...

True. How about reducing the extremely high per-capita emissions of developed countries? That will result in a huge drop in the total sum of emissions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...

People in such countries are taking up too many resources and that is not sustainable for the planet. There needs to be a carbon tax.

[sarbaz]

I was referring to the article's claim that because India is "emerging as a leader in renewable energy" we can expect it to contribute significantly less to climate change.