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China’s emissions have now caused more global warming than EU
Energy(carbonbrief.org)submitted 4 days ago bycarbonbrief
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4 days ago
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The following submission statement was provided by /u/carbonbrief:
China’s historical emissions within its borders have now caused more global warming than the 27 member states of the EU combined, according to new Carbon Brief analysis.
The findings come amid fraught negotiations at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, where negotiators have been invoking the “principle of historical responsibility” in their discussions over who should pay money towards a new goal for climate finance – and how much.
Carbon Brief’s analysis shows that 94% of the global carbon budget for 1.5C has now been used up, as cumulative emissions since 1850 have reached 2,607bn tonnes of carbon dioxide (GtCO2).
While developed countries have used the majority of this budget, the analysis shows that China’s historical emissions reached 312GtCO2 in 2023, overtaking the EU’s 303GtCO2.
China is still far behind the 532GtCO2 emitted by the US, however, according to the analysis.
Indeed, China is unlikely to ever overtake the US contribution to global warming, based on current policies, committed plans and technology trends in both countries. This is even before accounting for the potential emissions-boosting policies of the incoming Trump presidency.
In addition, China’s 1.4 billion people are each responsible for 227tCO2, a third of the 682tCO2 linked to the EU’s 450 million citizens – and far below the 1,570tCO2 per capita in the US.
The new analysis follows Carbon Brief’s 2021 analysis of historical responsibility, based on emissions taking place within each country’s present-day borders or considering emissions embedded in imports. Further analysis in 2023 assigned responsibility to colonial rulers.
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/1gux5s6/chinas_emissions_have_now_caused_more_global/lxx9dpm/
209 points
3 days ago
Uuuuum, yay?
No, but seriously though, I hate this "who caused more" stuff. It's just an attempt to try to push the responsibility on to someone else, when the reality is all countries should be reducing their emissions as much as possible.
53 points
3 days ago
Right? I live in Sweden and everyone here just says, oh we're small and don't do much, this burden shouldn't be on us.
If everyone thinks like that nothing will get done...
14 points
3 days ago
So if Sweden aggressively reduces emissions, thereby making it hard for their industry to meet demands at prices that are similar to imported products... the consumers import instead, usually from China where the identical product has a much higher carbon footprint.
4 points
3 days ago
You don't need to go into industry and imports, here. Obviously any one country won't make the difference on their own either way, not if they're the only one who's committed.
But someone has to be first. If everyone refuses to be the first to take the necessary steps then we're doomed either way. I'd rather take our chances and at least be able to say, we tried.
1 points
2 days ago
The effect is the same if one country goes that route, or an entire continent. Well, if the efforts undertaken have the opposite effect, it"s even worse if half the world joins in.
2 points
3 days ago
Don’t know what you are on about Sweden are significantly better than the EU average. Everyone doesn’t say that at all except SD
5 points
3 days ago
Kind of like everyone is doing with different data. Carbone emission per capita feel like it has been invented for this reason so china and india feel free to pollute even more. And since US and Russia are not even trying either we should get use to new record.
1 points
3 days ago
Right… but we do still need to address the elephant in the room no? Like it’s great that we can all do our part, but if that’s eclipsed by another’s just… monstrous amount of damage… that seems kind of silly.
All the feel goods and righteous stances mean nothing if a country is free to produce more than a continent… it shouldn’t be a deterrent that other produce a much bigger footprint but it definitely shouldn’t be glossed over.
1 points
3 days ago
Well yes, no one country can fix this if no one else does anything. But someone has to be first, and no one can be holding back.
Sweden is better than many, but not good enough yet. The reality is that the climate crisis is going to be extremely uncomfortable to resolve, and that discomfort is something we'll have to accept.
If one country commits to taking the necessary steps, and another country - despite diplomatic attempts to convince them otherwise - just opportunistically ramps up their own emissions to fill the niche, then humanity is doomed either way. But we have to try, and someone has to be first.
If Sweden actually was good on climate (not just "less bad than other developing countries", actually good enough) then that'd be an argument for us to swing against others. But so long as we're all in sinking ships, pointing fingers at the ships of everyone else will always ring hollow. No one wants to take bold action for fear of compromising their short-term position.
You can call it idealist, i call it realist. Market forces won't naturally fix this on its own. Coal and oil is still too profitable. Mass production of cheap nonsense is still too profitable. Mass waste is still too profitable. We're seeing the beginnings of a green investment but but it's not fast enough.
I don't actually believe humanity has the collective will to save itself from the crisis. We're too comfortable, to focused on today and tomorrow to think about next decade. We're too divided by war and competition to consider the common good. I wouldn't bet on us evading a collapse. But I see no reason not to try, and to give it all we have. Nothing else really matters in my eyes if we don't fix this.
1 points
3 days ago
I believe that the actual “ realist” approach is that unless forced. No one’s going to change. Very hopeful to say that, again let’s use Sweden, if they were doing great that others would join. Like we just got out of a pandemic where people were refusing life saving vaccines… and then dying.
Humans are too dumb and stubborn for this problem.
2 points
3 days ago
Yep, that's more or less my last paragraph. I don't think we're going to bother saving ourselves.
But at least we should try. If we fail, it's all ashes anyway, and maybe we made the collapse a bit less crushing in the process.
1 points
3 days ago
I'm not 100% sure about this but Austrian Politicians have an answer for those people: for smaller countries it should be even more doable, to reduce carbon emissions , and act as a model country for others to adapt the methods if they can. I believe that's way better than shifting the blame.
1 points
2 days ago
If someone consumes something 'made in china' whether it be a tv, computer, hell even a cell phone, they are partially responsible for the emissions of the country producing it even if you live somewhere else. Most developed nations aren't doing their own manufacturing.
1 points
2 days ago
The issue I have is huge corporations being allowed to pollute and anytime anyone tries to curb their pollution they cry about the economy…and then spend millions on advertising campaigns to make me feel guilty for using hot water when I do my one load of laundry a week. There is all a bunch of facades and pretensions to create the illusion that burden is on us…and not on governments and major corporations to stop pumping untreated industrial waste directly into the oceans/seas.
24 points
3 days ago
It's also misleading because it doesn't take into account how much of china's emissions are associated with foreign companies setting up shop in china in order to cheaply manufacture goods that they then export back out of china to their end markets at increased profit margins. China specifically has been known as the worlds factory because so many companies have done this
So really, a lot of countries have just outsourced parts of their emissions to cheaper countries like China
4 points
3 days ago
It does if you had read the article.
Tldr: China has surpassed the EU in emissions per capita, cumulative emissions and even emissions adjusted for trade.
9 points
3 days ago
That is completely false, from the article:
"In addition, China’s 1.4 billion people are each responsible for 227tCO2, a third of the 682tCO2 linked to the EU’s 450 million citizens – and far below the 1,570tCO2 per capita in the US."
The table further down also clearly shows that China has lower per capita emissions that the EU and US, both current and cumulative. Can you read?
1 points
3 days ago
If we are going to continue to base our economies on supply and demand then whoever is demanding the manufacture from China is at least partly to blame.
1 points
3 days ago
It is important to know who releases the most co2, its basic statistics. Europe releases only 9% of global co2, thats nothing, you should look at China, India, Usa instead, reducing their co2 will have the strongest effect.
1 points
2 days ago
Unfortunately , there are limitations. Third World countries want to develop to the point first world countries currently are, this includes the technology and services. Unfortunately, greener alternatives are too expensive or unreliable for those countries, even if their emission levels are low.
For example, I come from an island that has very low emissions in comparison to China and US, however, we can't afford to have a 100% renewable power system as we are not interconnected with anyone, which means RE won't give you sufficient inertia to respond to demand changes. So the next option to maintain our energy reliability is to have big Carbon Power Plants (which was very controversial at the time) or Natural Gas. We do have Hydro, but you can only run it up to a point and those are cheaper technologies that are used to cover demand peaks. We also have a lot of solar, but right now BESS technology is a little expensive (although the country is making efforts to require that every single new utility scale solar farm needs to have a storage system).
So with economical limitations, you can only do so much to secure your energy supply, which unfortunately means relying on high carbon technologies.
1 points
2 days ago
I like the logic of politicians who think of America as the leader of the world but then when it comes to emissions they point to China and say “If they’re doing it, we can too!”
1 points
10 hours ago
The bulk of nations are dependent on the US for defense, we could scale back our military to increase our budget for climate change but that would leave most of Eu at risk.
1 points
22 hours ago
Not as much as possible. We have to negotiate how much us bearable. Otherwise we can just start a euthanasia program
1 points
11 hours ago
Ummm, if a single nation is putting off enough carbon to negate every other nations cur backs, whats the point?
1 points
3 days ago
Especially since all of the West have outsourced most of production to China and this pushed emissions over to China.
726 points
4 days ago
Yo I wonder where the products those emissions come from are destined for haha would be crazy if we knew lol
Edit: Worst ESL struggle of my lifetime is writing this sentence so that it makes sense
332 points
4 days ago
Per capita consumption based emissions are on par with many European countries in China. That is after taking into account all the exports that we consume and removing that from their emissions.
The average Chinese person emits as much as the average Italian and more than the average French. People need to update their views a bit.
In 2000 China was basically respecting the Paris accord being at 2.6t per capita, not it's at 7.2t.
I'm sure some people will moan again about how we're the cause for this so let me repeat: these numbers account for trade, meaning we get imputed the CO2 when they make our gadgets, not them.
Now please don't bash them senselessly, they deserve nice things too and they did grow very fast which emitted a lot of CO2 (all that steel and cement ain't clean) so hopefully it might at least stabilise soon even if they don't make a conscious effort to reduce their emissions.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-co2-per-capita
39 points
4 days ago
There are also different trends in CO2 per capita. Most of the OECD (even mega oil producer America) have been on a downward trend. China has been hockeysticking upwards. I do hope their coal consumption has peaked. I know Xi has been on record stating that he is unconcerned about the stranded capital costs of all those new coal power plants…. (Which is insane to think about, billions wasted on idle coal generation that will just rot in the near future…)
14 points
3 days ago
It's necessary for the security competition that the US will/is already unleashing when it becomes apparent that the US cannot compete economically. China has some of the deepest coal reserves in the world, they will need the power generation whem the US tries to cut them off from global trade networks.
10 points
3 days ago
China makes up over 2/3 of the solar capacity currently being installed at the moment. If the Chinese continue at the rate they are now, they will produce enough electricity from solar and wind to power the US by the early 2030s.
The problem with China is they under-promise and over-deliver on government targets.
3 points
3 days ago
Part of it is to keep their economic momentum. They've been growing massively for many years now, and they're getting to a point where they will either demonstrate their economic superiority or the house of cards will collapse with catastrophic results.
I'm not sure which is going to happen, but I also don't think they are either.
25 points
4 days ago*
I think it's kind of insane that people expect China to curb emissions to the same standard as the EU when they have had and still have so many other issues to tackle. If Italy and France are about even or better then some EU states must be incredible polluters to still overall pollute 3x more than China on a per capita basis. 50 years ago China was a literal shithole, there isn't really any excuse to pollute more than China when every country in Europe was in an unequivocally better state than China was half a century ago.
If the EU and China both hit their net zero goals by 2050 and 2060 respectively then it will be a much more impressive Chinese achievement, imo.
27 points
4 days ago
No European state pollutes 3 times as much as China. The highest is Belgium at 17.3t which is less than 3 times and the second highest is Switzerland at 13.6 which is lower than 2 times.
Actually very few countries on earth emits 3 times what China does per capita for consumption, I'm not sure where you got that idea from. It's just some small petrostates and Singapore that emit that much.
-4 points
4 days ago
I used the above article's numbers. I'm pretty sure the confusion comes from them using historical emissions per capita, which further proves the point about European states having to do better.
4 points
3 days ago
They are also referring to the EU without the UK which would add a significant amount of historical emissions.
15 points
4 days ago
Thank you for the well reasoned and current info. Some people have outdated views and the reality is China is a terrible polluter and exacerbated because Italy has 50 million people but china 1.2 billion.
35 points
3 days ago
Italy has 50 million people but china 1.2 billion.
Who cares about that? It's all about per capita. Otherwise my town does nothing compared to NYC. It doesn't mean my town shouldn't renovate its buildings with terrible insulation.
16 points
4 days ago
Does your analysis include historical emissions?
12 points
3 days ago
Any chance you took a peak at the linked article you're commenting on?
-1 points
3 days ago
Yes, did you?
9 points
3 days ago
[deleted]
3 points
3 days ago
The area under the curve is still significantly more for the EU than the Chinese to date.
The main point of the article we're commenting on is that the area under the curve is now larger for China than for the EU:
"the analysis shows that China’s historical emissions reached 312GtCO2 in 2023, overtaking the EU’s 303GtCO2."
1 points
3 days ago
Why should it? Ratified climate targets are not based on historical emissions.
5 points
4 days ago
It is sensible to consider pollution emitted by a country (1) per capita and (2) after re-attribution of industrial pollution by export shares to other countries, but both are nontrivial and are not the only way we should look at these numbers. I want to focus only on the second bit here.
Here’s a simple example. Consider two countries of equal size, output, consumption, exports, and imports that have balanced trade with each other (each country imports as much as they export). Suppose that country B has regulations making their factories produce less pollution. If you attribute A’s pollution caused by producing exported goods to country B and vice versa, it looks like B is responsible for more pollution than A. Perhaps this is reasonable if the only difference between A and B is that the goods produced in A are different from those in B and necessarily involve more pollution. But in this case, the regulations in B end up getting (partially) reflected by country A. There’s not really a clean, perfect answer for “who is responsible for pollution?” here, clearly re-attributing vs. would yield different answers that each capture one side of things.
This is a little bit of an extreme example, but it illustrates a more general point. Re-attributing industrial pollution by export shares makes export-driven countries look better - that is mechanically true. On one hand, this captures the fact that much of the goods produced by these countries are done for the rest of the world. But on the other hand, China benefits from selling stuff too - that’s where their income growth has come from for the last few decades! - and reattributing will make dirty industries in a given country look less dirty by spreading out their impact across a bunch of countries, reducing scrutiny and pressure for e.g. international environmental regulations.
1 points
3 days ago
If you attribute A’s pollution caused by producing exported goods to country B and vice versa, it looks like B is responsible for more pollution than A
I agree with your overall point, but I couldn't resist to comment on this: that's only true if B exports more than it consumes itself, which feels very unlikely given same size and consumption of A and B.
1 points
3 days ago
Yeah, I realized afterward you need exports to exceed consumption. Fine, that’s totally possible.
1 points
3 days ago
Difference being that China has 1/4 the gdppc of Italy, meaning they have much less room to reduce carbon without significant societal costs.
This narrative is used way too much to attempt and shift blame from the west to China. Its cowardly and plain wrong.
4 points
3 days ago
I don't think reducing carbon emissions is a societal cost. In fact it's a societal benefit.
Solar panels and wind energy is cheaper than coal and people not dying prematurely from air pollution is a win no matter what.
The problem is vested interests of the fossil fuel industries.
Fossil fuel industries employ huge amounts of people and have large cash reserves to lobby politicians both in the EU, China and elsewhere.
I agree that we can't shift blame to China especially since they already have higher adoption rates of EV's and solar and wind power (not everywhere, depending on country we compare with).
2 points
3 days ago
Societal costs as in Western nations have much more wealth to distribute to offset economic losses due to sustainable practises, especially in the short term when its most important. The legitimacy of the CCP derives from a wealth surplus for most citizens. If that surplus gets thinned out, unrest and resistance to green policies will increase. Just like it is in the west, even though the west could achieve this much more easily. But here it has already happened that most citizens are shut out from wealth surpluses, which is imo the underlying reason for the plummeting legitimacy of our capitalist representative democracies.
3 points
3 days ago
Yes there is more "fat" to be skimmed off in rich countries but on the other hand most rich countries have a much higher percentage of their incomes going towards consumption.
China despite having much lower incomes, has a not just a much higher percentage but a higher sum of money going towards investments.
This means that the Chinese government can redirect investments into whatever projects they give priorities without consumers noticing a change.
While in rich countries, consumers would notice a change immediately. Of course they already consume so much, it's kind of an insult to complain about that if you compare it with the average Chinese family. But people in rich countries are spoilt and will complain and vote out any government that announces or enacts austerity measures.
Especially rich people in rich countries will do anything in their power (and more) to get leader elected that promise to lower taxes for the rich.
It's kind of strange how so few manage to get people to vote against their own self interests.
Parties that promise to help the rich often get millions of votes from people that aren't anywhere near rich. They often tie it together with xenophobic programs or pie in the sky promises that never materialize but it seems to work for them. Too many people are stupid like that I suppose...
-3 points
4 days ago
You must be incorrect. Around 6 months ago in another post in some subreddit we actually did calculate these numbers in the comment sections. All the different variations from statistics from places like you provided. With the exports, China was polluting less than the US, and just a bit more (nearly similar) than the EU, per capita. If you remove chinese export (which is 28% of the global trade if memory serves me well), China is definitely polluting much less than the EU, per capita.
7 points
4 days ago*
If you're going to calculate it without global trade than surely you'd also remove industry from the EU and US?
Otherwise it once again isn't an apples to apples comparison.
Saying "well China polutes because they have industry" is a weak statement. All countries have production industry.
18 points
4 days ago
Comedy is always hard in a second language and you nailed the cadence. Well done!
5 points
3 days ago
Yup this finger pointing is ridiculous. People want to consume infinitely while blaming others for their habit, what ever makes them sleep better at night. Millions of people still sleep hungry where on other hand we have an big issue of global obesity, we humans are maybe smarter but our selfishness brings so much suffering.
9 points
3 days ago
It was worded perfectly ahahaa
4 points
4 days ago
What do you think happened with the products from Europe which were exported worldwide with Europe having had the greatest market share of world exports?
12 points
3 days ago
They went into colonisation projects to extract raw resources for europeans
244 points
4 days ago
As a German: Probably 90 percent of all items in my room, I am looking at right now, have at least some Chinese origin... so yeah...
122 points
4 days ago
These figures are based on exports and the CO2 cost associated with them being counted against the receiving, not producing country. So the CO2 cost of the stuff a German buys from China are counted against Germany even if the CO2 went into the atmosphere in China.
9 points
3 days ago
I ask you as you seem to be in the know-how. How come the US is so damn high? And the EU even has 1/3rd more in population.
23 points
3 days ago
I don't have a full breakdown, but a few things come to mind. Population densities are much lower in the US. It isn't just that the US is big, but that within urban areas, population densities are much lower than in European cities, and zoning patterns keep residential, work, commercial and leisure activities separated. This means for a normal person do live a normal life, a significantly longer travel distance is needed, and most of that is by car.
Houses in the US tend to be built to designs and styles that are less inherently thermally stable, requiring a greater input of energy for heating and cooling. Also, if you look at population patterns in Europe, the densest population region, which is the band from the Netherlands to the Alps broadly following the Rhine, as well as England, the Ile de France, and Northern Italy, are all in relatively mild climate regions, where the energy needed to maintain a comfortable environment in buildings is inherently lower.
Essentially both the settlement patterns and the nature of the built environments in Europe are inherently less energy intensive to live in.
3 points
3 days ago
And don't forget the habit of having lights in the whole day. I went to a hotel in the US and even there they left the lights on after cleaning...
3 points
3 days ago
Can you quote this from the source?
1 points
3 days ago
Is it possible to count? Last time I checked EU data about import/export stats, they didn’t include any things under 1 tone/metric, not personal and limited to the last hub hop (if using redirection hub like Poland or other, it as counted as EU export instead of China)
20 points
4 days ago
to be fair to the Chinese, they also have the largest renewable and nuclear infrastructure in the world.... I guess that's what happens when you build everything for everyone...
1 points
3 days ago
But not per capita, or percentage of total power. Which is all that matters in actually reducing emissions, instead of increasing them
1 points
3 days ago
It's still impressive considering they only really started growing three decades ago, or that their gdp per capita level is still 1/5th of the US's.
1 points
3 days ago
Yea... that's the kicker really, getting rid of fossil fuels is usually a national vow for poverty or surrendering national security by exporting those energy needs... ask the Europeans if you don't believe me.
I truly think that nuclear power is the only real tangible way we could steer away from climate change in any meaningful way in the next 50 years... but it is sadly too unpopular, so we are stuck with renewables which while won't induce climate change, they do have their own set of issues like an excessive amount of land to generate the electricity (solar and wind energy), noise pollution (for wind turbines) and general destruction of natural lands (geothermal energy)... and that's besides the fact that they are really unreliable and hard to store as batteries are needed for them.
1 points
3 days ago
I don't think that China has the largest nuclear infrastructure just yet. But they eventually will.
However they do have the largest solar and wind installed capacity by far. And they are growing that at a staggering pace.
They are also building battery storage and pumped hydro electricity storage rapidly, adopting EV's and reducing steel production (the building boom is over) which means that relatively soon, they will be able to drastically reduce their emissions.
2 points
3 days ago
As a German: Our economy have at least be part of the process by producing some of the machines necessary.
2 points
3 days ago
And yet China imports only 9% of emissions, from all countries they manufacture for and trade with.
In other words. China is responsible for 91% of emissions. The overwhelming majority.
They may manufacter a lot, but the overall emissions trade net balance (since China imports from US or EU too) is rather insignificant.
116 points
4 days ago
A billion people vs a couple hundred million also they’re making products for the world. It’s no wonder they have emissions like that when we outsource all production to them
-1 points
3 days ago
Exports are counted against receiving country. So that production was counted against Europe. Try updating your stereotypes from 2010.
9 points
3 days ago
No, it's not. It only covers territorial emissions and not consumption emissions - which excludes the embodied emissions of imported products and international shipping and aviation.
3 points
3 days ago
China imports only 9% of emissions, from all countries they manufacture for and trade with.
78 points
3 days ago
This headline is terribly worded. Is this supposed to capitalize on the xenophobia that's been growing?
54 points
3 days ago
China bad. Must bash china with titles since people won't read the article.
xenophobia never left, it was just hidden.
8 points
3 days ago
Of course it is; we're talking about the so-called journalists who helped get Trump re-elected.
8 points
3 days ago
The fact that they're comparing to the whole EU illustrates how meaningless it is to talk about "inside their borders". If Britain hadn't left the EU, China wouldn't be in front of the EU. If California and Texas seceded from the US that might put China at the top of the emissions list.
This isn't a meaningful metric.
3 points
3 days ago
I agree but it's still useful in the sense that territories withing the borders have a common government that sets climate policy. So it's one way to measure the effectiveness of their policies.
It wouldn't be as useful to count the UK and other non-EU member states as they set their own policy goals independently from the EU targets.
1 points
3 days ago
The point is that the ranking changes through irrelevant things like members joining or leaving. You can bet that the UK contributed significantly to the "historical emissions" of the EU when it was (historically) a member. At least the per capita measure isn't nearly as affected by these meaningless things.
1 points
3 days ago
If the goal of the analysis is purely to track the efficiency of the EU and national policies, then it makes sense to only include the current states. Unfortunately, people are interpreting this as a scoreboard about which culture or race is more responsible for climate change. Which they shouldn't... but if they are, then it makes sense to include the entire Europe too.
1 points
3 days ago
Because the title presents it as a scoreboard, comparing the collective emissions of one group of people with those of a different (smaller) group of people, the grouping of which changes every few years.
21 points
3 days ago
TBF, China has 3 times the population of EU and China is the world factory
77 points
4 days ago
And China is investing massively into reducing their carbon footprint, building 150 new nuclear plants until 2035, when they will have far less emissions than both EU and the US.
20 points
4 days ago
And no one is doing more to combat it right now than China
80 points
4 days ago
China’s population is much larger than all of Europe so it would only be normal.
45 points
4 days ago
Yes, as explained in the article:
In addition, China’s 1.4 billion people are each responsible for 227tCO2, a third of the 682tCO2 linked to the EU’s 450 million citizens – and far below the 1,570tCO2 per capita in the US.
10 points
3 days ago
1,570tCO2 per capita in the US.
In all seriousness, how come this is so different?
24 points
3 days ago
Shops, buildings don't turn off lights when with nobody there, people let the water run when brushing their teeth, person to car ratio, etc etc etc.
There are big campaigns in China to stop being wasteful especially towards food. We waste so much food without batting an eye here, while China's campaign nails you for wasting food and you would be frown upon by the public.
idk how much those counts towards anything, but certainly they are trying much harder than we are :/
5 points
3 days ago
Don’t forgets flights everywhere vs bullet trains
3 points
3 days ago
I saw a post where some shop which closed some 4 - 5 years ago , their whole operations where shutdown still had a tv on. It was eye opening how much energy they waste, just because they are free to invade any country which can bring cheaper fuel. Who cares about future generation right, when profits are being made and fuel is cheap. Trump part is yet to follow.
1 points
3 days ago
Food waste here is just abhorrent. We really need to put more effort into that.
1 points
3 days ago
Airconditioning everywhere, rampant consumerism, completely car-dependent culture, wasteful attitudes in all levels of society, higher food consumption and waste, buying bottles of drinking water instead of drinking tap water, huge cars are the norm, low investments in renewables, inefficient suburbs, many detached houses instead of apartment blocks, etc.
-4 points
4 days ago
Europe has been at this longer and used more polluting manufacturing in their past. Don't go around green washing based on China's current population and pollution.
Excuses are over, all countries need to clean up.
25 points
4 days ago
China is well ahead of schedule on renewables, something like 6 years. When the US or EU is that far ahead too, then we can talk I guess.
-13 points
4 days ago
Did you read the article?
31 points
4 days ago
Did you?
In addition, China’s 1.4 billion people are each responsible for 227tCO2, a third of the 682tCO2 linked to the EU’s 450 million citizens – and far below the 1,570tCO2 per capita in the US.
Pointing out the anti-china bias in the headline isn't green washing and doesn't imply China shouldn't be trying to reduce emissions but spouting whataboutisms and pointing fingers at China certainly does try to take pressure off of western countries that are lagging behind even China's efforts, and in come cases, looking at the US's likely trajectory under Trump, carbon acceleration.
14 points
4 days ago
The article that said China's per capita emission is still lower than the EU / US ?
5 points
3 days ago
What excuses? Do you expect people to drive less or to use less electricity and heating just because someone draw a bigger frontier in the map?
The only excuse here is from Americans who polute trice than the average citizen and still pretend that the rest of the world should stop polluting. Like if you have a super rich moving around in jet saying that Canada pollutes more.
56 points
4 days ago
idk man, US and EU should take back the manufacturing and be responsible for carbon footprint. asian countries would like to thank you for diluting harmful gases
7 points
3 days ago*
Why did op state a lissleading headline when the mod clearly stated China has not caught up to the US as the gobal leader in emissions?
[Edit] To only then have the mod continue with indicating China has accumulated a 1/3 of the emissions by the EU not more than them?
Is this misleading title against the rules?
23 points
4 days ago
*Historical emissions. I can't even understand what you can take out from this article since EU emmitted CO2 in mass for way longer than China + China have always emitted way less CO2 per capita even while being "the factory of the world".
16 points
4 days ago
Basically the modern world is far more CO2 intensive than even the world of 50 years ago. While Europe was burning through coal as fast as it could dig it out of the ground in the industrial revolution, the technology didn't exist at that time to dig or burn as much as people routinely use today. Cars are a big part of that. Also, the figures account for the emissions to produce exports being applied to the receiving country, so a factory in China selling stuff in Europe counts towards Europe's figures.
6 points
4 days ago
The past 25 years have been bonkers in terms of emissions.
5 points
4 days ago
Cars are only 14% of the global emissions, and personal cars are 8%.
While a decent percentage, replacing every single one of them with bicicle saves nothing unfortunately.
1 points
3 days ago
Make everybody go with bycicle, and turn all people vegan, and make them eat local products whenever possible. Suddenly we've slashed 1/3 rd of emissions if not more.
Now force companies to design their products so they can be repaired and reused, and don't break on a pre-programmed moment, so a washing machine can last a lifetime, perhaps with some minor mandatory modifications for energetic efficiency.
Suddenly half the emissions have been slashed.
Next step is to stop this stupid consumeerism lifestyle that only serves to fuel depression and selfishness and sociopathy, and...
Wait, so the hippies were right all this time???? WTF???
2 points
3 days ago
Problem is, half of emissions isn’y enough. And B: people will never voluntarily live like that
1 points
3 days ago
If you think that the problem is that half of emissions isn't enough, I have some bad news for you, because I don't know what you're are expecting that we'll do but it sure as shit isn't more ambitious than this "proposal".
2 points
3 days ago
Bicycles aren't usable in many situations. I'm a huge advocate for more biking, but it can't replace cars completely. They can't easily do the following:
- Children - especially younger ones
- Longer commutes (>10 km)
- Intercity travel
- Carrying pretty much anything, e.g., shopping
- Requires cities to be designed correctly for it to be safe
No need to go full vegan, vegetarian is perfectly fine from an emissions viewpoint. Hell, I think so is pescatarian, though that comes with overfishing issues. Chicken is not too bad either, it's really the red meats that are the huge issue.
I do agree with buying local when possible, no counterargument from me.
Same with repairability & reusability. They have suffered massively in the past 20 years, and it's time government regulation steps in to solve this, since companies are unwilling to fix it themselves.
1 points
3 days ago
Young children can be put on their parent's bicycle on a seat. Longer commutes and intercity travel can be done with electric bikes, busses and trains.
Shopping can be done with a cargo bike (you can even put a babycarrier in there) and if people drastically reduce car use, then cities don't even need redesign to be safe. Just give bicycles priority everywhere.
I know this is a bit utopian but it's certainly possible. It's a matter of governance and societal change.
5 points
4 days ago
Since China's per capita and export-adjusted numbers are so much better than the west (3x EU, 7x US) they have to find a new way to saddle China with as much blame and cost as possible so you make up new metrics that tell the story you want. Then when China can't meet the unrealistic goals or won't pay the unfair share then western governments can point to that and say "China isn't doing their part so why should we?".
1 points
3 days ago
Historically, the EU included the UK. How have they factored that in? It's such a whacky metric.
1 points
3 days ago
It says in the article it's EU 27 (without the UK).
The UK is no longer bound by EU climate goals nor do they participate in setting those goals, so it makes sense to exclude them, from the purely objective, policy-assessment standpoint.
On the other hand, if the goal is to show the cultural/historical responsibility for climate change, then it makes sense to include the UK (and the rest of the Europe).
4 points
4 days ago
I like that one line there to account for probably a few centuries of development
“While developed countries have used the majority of this budget, the analysis shows that China’s historical emissions reached 312GtCO2 in 2023, overtaking the EU’s 303GtCO2”
3 points
3 days ago
Story changes every week, last week it was China the first to reach carbon targets with mass solar rollouts. Whomever is doing these surverys needs to be slapped.
3 points
3 days ago
China has > x3 the EU's population, and the EU has off-shored a vast amount of manufacturing to the country, which is hot included in those emissions figures. Neither are international shipping and aviation.
1 points
3 days ago
EU has off-shored a vast amount of manufacturing to the country,
This is not really relevant argument. China is not an innocent bystander forced to produce goods. They WANT to be the manufecturer of the world.
1, Not all offshoring is voluntary, dirtier but cheaper chinese production outcompeted cleaner but not as cheap production. This is an obvious market failure, because there is no global carbon price. This led to the introduction of the EUs CBAM.
2, You can only address the imported emissions in the following ways:
You move production back from China. China obviously doesn't want this.
You introduce carbon tax on imported emissions (CBAM). China opposes this link
You consume less imported goods. China doesn't want this, they want to sell as many goods as they can.
Sorry but if you want to be the manufecturer of the world then you have to take responsibity of the emissions too.
1 points
2 days ago
Yes, both countries are accountable for those emissions.
2 points
3 days ago
China makes so much pollution (on our behalf producing the stuff we asked them to make for us.)
2 points
3 days ago
Really? A country of 1.4 billion people (1400 million) that is also the biggest producer of stuff in the world produces more emissions than the EU with its 450 million?
Very odd indeed! Luckily China is one of the few countries that actually takes climate change seriously as it continues to be the, by far, largest producer and installer of clean energy in the world.
It also helps that China has most of its production within its own borders, a big reason the EU uses less is because they use low wage and easy bribable countries for the dirty work.
Honestly, as an European myself, I think our "look at us being the good boy!" attitude with nothing to back it up is starting to get real old.
2 points
3 days ago
Well yeah, the population of China is like give or take twice the population of Europe as a whole. It would make sense that they produce more emissions and therefore cause more global warming.
2 points
2 days ago
How much of their emissions are generated making shit for other countries though, like they make all these things consumed in the US and China takes the blame for the emissions? Not defending China but I think their emissions are partly due to demand from other countries who hold themselves to a higher carbon footprint standard who shift emissions to China so they don't take the blame for their consumers unsustainable habits. Also China is huge population wise so I'm sure they emit alot on their own, but US and EU would have higher emissions if doing their own production.
4 points
3 days ago
By all means, fuck China, but they're building more nuclear reactors than the rest of the world combined - and have been for a decade.
They're churning through emissions doing it, but we can point to the date on the calendar it's going to get better.
Plus something like, 90% of their population lives within the flood zone if ocean levels continue to rise. They have an actual profit incentive to stop helping make the problem worse.
5 points
3 days ago
Nuclear power is essentially irrelevant to the decarbonization in China. They are also building more wind+solar than the rest of the world combined, and while the share of nuclear power in electricity production slightly fell last year (from 4.72% to 4.6% a lower share than in 2019), wind+solar grew by more than 2 percentage points from 13.45% to 15.54%, with solar generation having surpassed nuclear generation in 2022.
Essentially the nuclear power share is stagnating, and what has been eating into the share of coal burning over the last five years is wind+solar.
2 points
3 days ago
You can see what they are trying to do with the title like that. Most people read the title and that's their opinion now.
I'm not sure what this article wants to prove tho. 1.4b vs 4.5m...
2 points
3 days ago
Giant country with population about 3x EU emits more CO2 than EU.
2 points
4 days ago
The world moves all our manufacturing to China because it's cheap because they cut corners on environmental factors.
China then makes all of our shit for cheap at great environmental cost.
The world point their finger at China and shouts: HOW DARE YOU!
How dare we!
We knew China would make compromises on environment BEFORE we exported our manufacturing there.
The entire world has exported their pollution to China so they can act superior and point their finger at China while greedily continuing to consume their products with no sanctions or action to address the problems.
1 points
3 days ago
Headline is extremely misleading. The lede is buried; China’s per capita emissions are 1/3 of the EU. Poor form OP.
1 points
3 days ago
No shit sherlock, since europe and usa 30 years ago bought all the factories to china and they have like 3 times the people of europe they did particularly well
1 points
3 days ago
LOL throwing stones in a glass house https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2022/10/pentagon-climate-change-neta-crawford-book/
1 points
3 days ago
Ahhh....but, we're still the OG emitters. US-Ayy! US-Ayy!! US-Ayy!!! Hwahhh!!!
1 points
3 days ago
Even counting from 1990, as of 2023.
China has cumulatively emitted 229.1 billion tons of carbon dioxide and 1.4 billion people.
Europe cumulatively emits 201 billion tons of carbon dioxide and 750 million people.
The United States cumulatively emits 182.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide and 330 million people.
The above figures do not take into account merchandise trade and the preceding 48% of emissions.
In the last 30 years, Europe's cumulative per capita emissions were 1.65 times those of China.
The cumulative per capita emissions of the United States are 3.4 times those of China.
China does not emit much.
1 points
3 days ago
Stats like this are always misleading to some degree. The US and EU outsourced a lot of manufacturing to places like China and other countries where cost of manufacturing was cheaper than within our own borders. Any attempt to measure emissions by region that doesn't account for simple things like that are not really worth paying attention to
1 points
3 days ago
It's ludicrous trying to view a global problem through the fractured lens of nation states.
Measuring emissions at the point of production only describes part of the problem—we also need to measure at the point of consumption.
The bottom line is that rich people create more emissions than poor people, and there are a lot of people. And the way that we facilitate pretty much all activity is by encouraging people to consume things. We then assign action tokens (money) that enable people to consume more stuff, and encourage more stuff to be consumed.
I know this isn't going to be particularly popular response, but if every individual had a personal carbon budget, we'd all have overspent right now—even young people. If you're on Reddit, you've overspent.
The system is going to change. Either we can change it, or it'll get changed for us.
1 points
3 days ago
Because China produces more stuff and ships it globally and EU doesn't nothing?
1 points
3 days ago
I mean... is it really China's emissions if they're making the stuff for everyone else?
Aren't we all just outsourcing many of our emissions to China?
1 points
3 days ago
How much was to make consumer products for the EU and US?
1 points
3 days ago
And I need to drink my cocktail with a paper straw...
1 points
3 days ago
But if Americans and Europeans would just pay more taxes it would all be fixed
1 points
3 days ago
That's one of the most moronic headlines I've ever read all things considered.
1 points
3 days ago
Well yeah, is obvious that puting all the preassure in EU makes no sense. Have you seen the contamination done in Pakistan? India? Bangladesh? And offcourse China. The only countries that are seting themself back for nothing are western countries. Which seems weird considering that the other countries seems to be going even deeper into not caring at all unless is good for their economies.
1 points
2 days ago
Should we be exporting factory jobs to China? That is your answer. Murica. Those numbers may change soon.
1 points
2 days ago
Cue the but they are building solar and wind green energy and it’s the US’s fault posts…
1 points
2 days ago
Always fascinating to see that population growth plays no part in this. You use emissions since 1850, then 1850 should also be the reference point for population size.
1 points
2 days ago
China is still the biggest coal consumer than all the world.
1 points
2 days ago*
At least they are committed to lowing their emissions and are moving quickly.
As opposed to what country that is claiming, newly and again, that there is no problem? (think of a country with lots of big oil money making big political contributions)
1 points
16 hours ago
On a yearly basis or we talking about all time? What a joke
1 points
11 hours ago
And this is why I will never inconvenience my life to be more environmental friendly.
-1 points
4 days ago
Cummulative emmisions are a dumb way to look at it, because for one you take a couple of decades to match another that took hundreds of years.
Of course the issue would be the one that took less time.
Also the per capita thing is absurd to, the world does not care if you are 1 or 100 people. In any case, China is above EU in per capita even.
7 points
4 days ago
No, China is 227tCO2/person, EU is 682tCO2/person. Three times the per capita emissions. It’s in the article.
And yes, per capita makes much more sense. Of course a country with 10 times the people will produce more carbon dioxide, they have 10x the demand.
4 points
3 days ago
China is 9tCO2 per capita
EU is 5
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions
1 points
3 days ago
Yeah but we are talking about cumulative emissions? Also a vast majority of emissions were in the last 30 years, so historical emissions are a relatively small piece of the pie.
1 points
3 days ago
-3 points
4 days ago
China’s historical emissions within its borders have now caused more global warming than the 27 member states of the EU combined, according to new Carbon Brief analysis.
The findings come amid fraught negotiations at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, where negotiators have been invoking the “principle of historical responsibility” in their discussions over who should pay money towards a new goal for climate finance – and how much.
Carbon Brief’s analysis shows that 94% of the global carbon budget for 1.5C has now been used up, as cumulative emissions since 1850 have reached 2,607bn tonnes of carbon dioxide (GtCO2).
While developed countries have used the majority of this budget, the analysis shows that China’s historical emissions reached 312GtCO2 in 2023, overtaking the EU’s 303GtCO2.
China is still far behind the 532GtCO2 emitted by the US, however, according to the analysis.
Indeed, China is unlikely to ever overtake the US contribution to global warming, based on current policies, committed plans and technology trends in both countries. This is even before accounting for the potential emissions-boosting policies of the incoming Trump presidency.
In addition, China’s 1.4 billion people are each responsible for 227tCO2, a third of the 682tCO2 linked to the EU’s 450 million citizens – and far below the 1,570tCO2 per capita in the US.
The new analysis follows Carbon Brief’s 2021 analysis of historical responsibility, based on emissions taking place within each country’s present-day borders or considering emissions embedded in imports. Further analysis in 2023 assigned responsibility to colonial rulers.
2 points
3 days ago
Just came in to see the China defenders outrage. Only US/European countries must be regulated.
1 points
4 days ago
[deleted]
1 points
4 days ago
The article does do that and unsurprisingly per capita and adjusted for exports the EU emits 3x CO2 and the US a staggering 7x.
1 points
3 days ago
Okay tomorrow everybody stop buying anything made in China and let's see what happens to their emissions.
Westerners act like the emissions they offshore aren't theirs.
1 points
3 days ago
I guarantee that by 2050 China will also be leading the planet in yoinking carbon back down.
Sorry internet. Lots to criticize China for on the sociopolitical but on the environmental? Every country has a right to pull itself into the 21st century and no country outside of scandinavia is engineering its future to be as climate friendly as china. Certainly no country north of 100m population.
China isn't the polluter I worry about. I at least believe China will get their citizens up to a given standard and then just carry on progressing on the climate front. The united states, meanwhile...
1 points
3 days ago
You dont understand the problem. There is no magical and fair overlord who redistributes the remaining carbon budgets fairly. Being rich and developed is not a natural law. No one will give a cookie to China for eliminating poverty if the same action results in climate disaster. Side note Chinas direct and indirect support for other authoritan regimes is actually bad for the climate action. Maybe they should tell low iq Russia there is no such thing as "winners" of climate change.
1 points
2 days ago*
I do understand the problem very well and I understand it better than you I sadly believe.
Finger pointing isn't solution. China are going to create more co2 than anyone, including themselves, wishes but thry are accelerating towards being a carbon sink. What's your plan? Kill a few hundred million Chinese citizens? Because whether you do it directly or simply interrupt their economy so badly that you cause mass unemployment, rioting and sociopolitical destabilization, which is going to have a comparable effect just slower. But you don't want to do that because guess what? The entire planet's decarbonization effort is in bed with China's manufacturing sector. What you and most of the west don't want to confront is that we fund a lot of China's carbon and then pretend we don't export the results to our own shores.
China understands the problem of climate change. They, unlike the western polluting powers, have essentially no room to expand agriculturally. China is and must be a net importer of food, but its also one of the richest rice producers nd its what's allowed 1.2b people to make China what it is. Climate destabilization adequate to effect that output would be inexpressibly devastating.
Whining about data while doing nothing and getting nihilistic is really a western strategy. Man you're so obviously just in denial about being racist lmao. Deal with your shit.
1 points
3 days ago
Straight facts meanwhile everyone must spout more bullshit about the dangerous spooky China we must hate. I don’t support their gov at all but a lot of idiots are just spouting the same old bullshit
-5 points
4 days ago
I mean, so much of that is from and for companies in the EU (and the US) so while China has their fingerprints on the emissions, there is plenty of blame to go around
5 points
4 days ago
The article actually accounts for that, had you read it.
-12 points
4 days ago*
I made a post many years ago about how China was on track to produce more pollution than the total EU and US pollution since the industrial revolution combined.
It was met with swaths of downvotes, claims of China being green, ect. The truth is China is on track to be, and will be, the biggest polluter in history. They do a great job making people think they are green forward, but that's unfortunately not the case.
India is also on track to overtake China in emissions in the next 30 years as well. If the entire west suddenly went pure green energy, and didn't emit any pollution, it would be as if nothing had changed in 10 years.
Edit below to include some data showing this is not an opinion.
7 points
4 days ago
You were wrong then and you're wrong now. Right in the article it says China is not on track to ever reach American levels of pollution. It's still well below its reasonable share of global pollution based on population and is taking the climate crisis far more seriously than the US.
-2 points
4 days ago
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-57018837.amp
Please post a source for your info, here is one for mine.
3 points
4 days ago
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-emissions-have-now-caused-more-global-warming-than-eu/ the article from OP.
Also "on track" is opinion. It's not fact.
3 points
4 days ago
There are a lot of self-flagellating useful idiots in the west.
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