[dominotw]

> India's per capita CO2 output is tiny.

being tiny now implies incredible room for growth given growth rates of those countries, which is actually an arugment for more action not less.

> Per capita is the only way we can talk about CO2

Wouldn't it also mean India and china won't have to do anything for decades till they get to same per capita as USA ?

[jogjayr]

India is already doing plenty. See my comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18164816

[yibg]

It would mean China needs to stop emitting more per capita and the US (and other developed countries) needs to reduce its emissions per capita.

[dominotw]

> It would mean China needs to stop emitting more per capita

No it doesn't following GP's chain of logic. It doesn't need to do anything till the point it hits US per capita.

[wutbrodo]

"doesn't need to do anything" is a qualifier that _you_ added, apparently based on a gross misunderstanding of the conversation. We're talking about defining an ideal target here, with deference paid to the fact that the status quo poses some inertia. If we're talking about an idealized frictionless vacuum, everybody would snap to the same emissions per capita, at the level required to forestall the negative effects of climate change. This would imply a substantial reduction of US emissions and perhaps an increase or small decrease in Indo-China emissions; increasing China to US levels doesn't make sense in any model, idealized or otherwise. Given that inertia means that the US reduction can't be immediate and drastic, it still suggests that mroe of the burden for emission reduction falls on the US than on India and China.

[dominotw]

I admit don't really understand what target would china and india have per capita under this model.

Why would any burden fall on china/india given they are already on the low end of per capita.

Can you define what burden falls on them under your per capita model?

[jeltz]

No, China emits more than the greener European countries so they should act, just like we should. The US being way worse is not an excuse for Europe or China to do nothing.

[vkou]

I also agree with this. Even greener European countries are not particularly close to a sustainable level of emissions.

China's per-capita output is a problem. But it's not the kind of problem where we can just point fingers at it, and using that as a justification to ignore the mess we're making. (As we range from 'just as bad' to 'much worse'.)

[vkou]

> Wouldn't it also mean India and china won't have to do anything for decades till they get to same per capita as USA ?

If the US does not reduce it's emissions, yes. (In China's case, it's emissions are currently per-capita similar to most of the EU).

This is a great argument for the US, and the EU to reduce their emissions, instead of sitting around, pointing fingers are China.

Again, if you aren't using per capita metrics, you will get absurd conclusions. If a country splits in half, does that mean it should be allowed to emit twice as much?

[dominotw]

> EU to reduce their emissions

Why would EU need to reduce if they are currently 'middle of the road' like you said.

[Filligree]

Because "middle of the road" isn't good enough. If we want to avoid disaster than the EU needs to cut emissions massively, and the US needs to cut even more.

[magduf]

The EU is in a much better position to cut emissions too: their cities are generally denser and have far better public transit than the US's sprawling cities and suburbs. All the EU needs to do is increase the price of auto fuel more to discourage private vehicle usage, and further build out their public transit systems.

The US is in a terrible position, however, because everything is car-based. It would help if they'd push for more dense development and extending public transit, but there's really no sign of that at all.

[eukaryote]

The US could also increase the price of petrol. This would encourage the use of more fuel-efficient cars. Most European cars are way more efficient than American cars. Admittedly, this is a cultural, not a technological, problem in the US.

[magduf]

>The US could also increase the price of petrol.

No, it really can't. The voters would immediately vote for the candidate that promises to reverse this. Gas prices are a huge political issue in the US, to an irrational extent. Americans cling irrationally to their gigantic SUVs and will do anything to keep them.

>Most European cars are way more efficient than American cars.

Not really, no. Cars these days are all pretty efficient; it's the trucks and SUVs that guzzle gas. Tiny cars really don't get much better fuel economy than mid-size cars any more, and no one buys full-size cars these days (I don't think there's even any made any more). A Prius is way more efficient than some tiny European car like a Smart.

Now if you're talking average fleet economy (which takes into account that so many Americans buy trucks and SUVs instead of cars), then you're correct, but that's because of buying choices. If we all switched to Priuses, we'd easy double (or more) our average fuel economy.

>Admittedly, this is a cultural, not a technological, problem in the US.

Exactly, which is why I was complaining about the sprawl and car culture of the US. Just telling people to buy more efficient cars isn't going to change anything; it's a product of a culture where there's sprawl and too much low-density development and a mindset that everything should be optimized for car-based travel. It's naturally going to lead to many people being selfish and buying larger vehicles than they need. This is the case everywhere where there's private vehicles, including Europe and Japan. I've seen huge SUVs, vans, etc. in Japan and Europe. Of course, they're not that common in those places because fuel prices are high and public transit is good, but if those two factors weren't true there, they'd be full of giant SUVs just like the US.