[throawayonthe]

absolute amounts of emissions by country is an arbitrary division, more people = more (demand for) industrial activity; for the numbers to be useful and actionable, they need to be understood in the context of the people those emissions are for, no?

[_aavaa_]

At the end of the day, it's one ecosystem we all live it. It doesn't matter if the top polluter has 1 billion, 0.1 billion, or 10 billion people. The total amount of greenhouses gasses added to the atmosphere is too much. We all need to stop adding and then start removing.

As for which metric to use, that depends on the argument you want to make. One can look at cumulative emissions and see how western nations have polluted much more historically, and should therefore do much more to clean up a mess their have contributed much more to.

Their governments will retort: "Oh but we produce so little of current global emissions now, those other countries polluting more should change first".

[pjc50]

> It doesn't matter if the top polluter has 1 billion, 0.1 billion, or 10 billion people

Each polluter is an individual person making individual decisions.

The thing people are dancing around is any concept of "rationing", because that's political suicide, but at the same time asking people who've only just got clean water and walk to work to reduce emissions while other people are taking multiple transatlantic flights per week looks a bit questionable.

[_aavaa_]

> The thing people are dancing around is any concept of "rationing"

I don’t know who those people are. Also, another way to say rationing is “sharing”.

[Timon3]

But why are countries the best division? Why not continents, or unions of countries (e.g. EU or USA), or sub-country divisions like states, or even smaller regions? Countries don't have the highest possible impact on all people, that would probably be unions. It's also not the most direct impact, that would depend on each country, but for e.g. Germany that would be the individual states.

The per-capita measurement allows you to directly and meaningfully compare any subdivision, while per-country isn't even meaningfully comparable with other per-country measurements.

[_aavaa_]

> The per-capita measurement allows you to directly and meaningfully compare any subdivision, while per-country isn't even meaningfully comparable with other per-country measurements.

Compare to what end? The environment cares about total output, not per capita output.

> while per-country isn't even meaningfully comparable with other per-country measurements.

Why does it need to be?

[Timon3]

> Compare to what end? The environment cares about total output, not per capita output.

Yes, and the environment does not care in any way about countries or other silly subdivisions. So we approach the problem as each of us humans having some carbon budget based on the limits of our environment. You can argue how exactly these budgets are distributed, but it's the only measure that matters. Because again: you're arbitrarily choosing to look at countries, when even other subdivisions along the same axis would make more sense. So why focus on countries specifically?

> Why does it need to be?

Because obviously a measurement that's comparable is more useful than one that isn't. It allows us to make determinations about what changes bring us closer to the goal of environmental sustainability, and which changes bring us further away. Do I really need to go on further?

[_aavaa_]

> So why focus on countries specifically?

Because it is at the country level that people corporate on international problems. And in many countries it is the federal (or equivalent level) which has the money required to build out the kind of projects needed change those numbers (or the legal authority to mandate it).

Ahh. I misunderstood what you meant. > while per-country isn't even meaningfully comparable with other per-country measurements.

I interpreted as “other per-country measurements” as (other measurements) not (same metric, different country).

I still think it’s not relevant. The changes and the target are still the same, i.e. stop burning shit.

[Timon3]

> Because it is at the country level that people corporate on international problems.

It's also at the union level that people corporate on international problems, arguably more so than on the country level. Yet the largest differences occur at the regional level. Both would be more comparable, and would capture arguably more useful information. I just don't see how an arbitrary and incomparable measurement is better than one without those flaws.

> I still think it’s not relevant. The changes and the target are still the same, i.e. stop burning shit.

Yes, but it's easier to implement the necessary changes if everyone tries. It will be much harder to get the necessary investment from all voting populations if large discrepancies exist between groups of people.

[meany]

Doesn’t that assume that the production isn’t for export. For instance, if the EU and US export their industries to low wage, high population countries you would see their per capita numbers drop and overall leveling out. However, the damage to the climate would be equal. Essentially, you need to look at a lot of factors and think holistically about the problem.

[_aavaa_]

No. The comment I replied to is about comsumption-based emissions, which attempt to account for exactly this. See the description in the link