[jmward01]

I don't think China needs convincing. They have likely already hit peak emissions and will start dropping, potentially rapidly, going forward. Europe is big. It just needs to move forward with purpose and things will happen. Getting that purpose is the hard part because world leaders have consistently said 'it will destroy our economy' and never actually tried. China, again, is showing that this isn't true. You can have both, a strong economy and a plan, backed by action, to decarbonize. Had Europe and the US had the forethought to actually invest in solar and batteries then they could be leading the energy transition and profiting, with literal profit meaning hard cash, right now by selling to the rest of the world. Instead the boogyman argument of 'it will destroy our economy' keeps rearing its head. I am absolutely done with that argument.

[spwa4]

I don't get what's with all the China fanboys here. China is increasing it's CO2 output quite a bit. And for completeness, so is India. For both countries the CO2 output is bad enough that it's not just adding to global warming, but this coal plant smoke what's causing the famous smog in Beijing and New Delhi. It's causing breathing problems, cancer, ... in their population.

[runarberg]

They demonstrably are not.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-co2-emissions-ha...

https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-indias-co2-emissions-in...

[spwa4]

First: look at the CO2 graph for China. That's not falling in any reasonable definition of a word, that's called "flat", even if it is technically less than before.

Second: it's normal for graphs to fall off in their last 1-5 data points because measurements are still coming in.

Third: it's using Chinese data. China has, by the way, publicly declared that they're lying about all public economic data. Please don't use Sinopec data to argue your point.

https://www.iea.org/countries/china/emissions

China CO2 emissions are rising fast.

Second: India's CO2 emissions are growing according to the article you posted.

[runarberg]

That trend stopped last year in China and will probably stop this year in India.

Showing graphs which start in the year 2000 (when China had relatively low CO2 emissions) and ending in 2023 (a year before they peaked in 2024) is simply lying with statistics. The most resent data shows that China’s emissions are no longer rising.

Now I know we need to do better then that and emissions need to drop extremely fast if we want to stay under catastrophic 2° C warming. But the truth is that China and India are doing exactly as bad as the rest of the world (including Europe here). And considering the economic factors (that Europe can in fact afford the changes required; but still fall way short) India is doing much better then the rest of the world.

[spwa4]

> That trend stopped last year in China and will probably stop this year in India.

Maybe. For now, for the major cities, it shows that "a rapidly expanding ecological catastrophe" is downgraded to "an expanding ecological catastrophe", and only China's own data is even showing that slowdown. And, by the way, the source of the catastrophe isn't even oil. It's almost exclusively coal. That's what China and India need to stop with. But I hope the slowdown's real.

As for the eternal "someone else must pay, they can afford it" comment. Best of luck convincing the European parliaments. I've actually tried that once. Seriously, not like those "protests". Not going to happen. Plus, frankly, it's harder now than when I tried it and got crushed.

Maybe the Iran war will accomplish what nobody could. Of course it'll probably increase coal use. And to calculate that effect, you should as a rule of thumb take the octane number, divide by 2, and that's how much worse coal is than oil. Compared to car fuel, it's about 50 times worse. So I doubt it.

[raven12345]

China and India need to stop with coal how about USA?

CO2 emissions per capita, global ranking, 2023

9 United States 13.088

19 China 7.89

97 India 1.922

https://www.iea.org/countries/china/emissions

[runarberg]

These reductions are not like the ones we observed during the Pandemic where the emissions took a dip because of the decreased consumption during lockdown. These reductions are because both China and (to a lesser degree) India have invested in the infrastructure to decrease their dependence on fossil fuel. This in combination to the fact that the economics are heavily in favor of renewable energy. Experts are pretty much in agreement that these reductions are here to stay, and are very likely to speed up in fact.

I hate to say it, but what is probably happening is the economics are causing this, not the Iran war. Renewable energy is simply becoming this much cheaper, that even the capitalist idealogs in the Chinese and the Indian governments are rolling out renewable infrastructure. In other words, capitalism is finally reducing emissions, 20 years too late and 90% too slow.

[raven12345]

You wouldn't say that if you looked at the data

https://www.statista.com/statistics/690823/china-annual-pm25...

[esseph]

They are not..it has peaked. Coal firing plants are slowing down and renewable generation is outpacing non-renewable. Emissions are dropping as of 2024-2025. They look to have plateaued.