My father is 75, doesn't speak English and has no idea what "climate change" is scientifically. However, as a farmer he has been noticing the change in climate for the past 15 years at least.
I am not a farmer, and don't have his experience, but I am aware enough or my surroundings to notice that the climate of my childhood was different.
We used to get rain in the summer. We used to get snow in the winter. It's currently winter, one of the driest I can remember. No rain and no snow.
China, USA, India, Russia - those are countries producing most of the CO2. Take those four countries and you have roughly half of the emissions.
Do you really think China will change anything economical at all when Germany or Great Britian cripled themselves to death? Do you think Russia highest priority is the reduction of CO2?
China is currently at around European level in CO2/capita (~8tons CO2/capita/year).
US is SIGNIFICANTLY worse by about a factor of two (~15tons CO2/capita/year).
"The west" has currently pretty much ZERO moral standing when pushing for more drastic anti-CO2 policies in China and especially developing nations like India or Africa. This is not taking "exported" emissions into account and considering cumulative emissions draws an even more dire picture.
"The ball is in China/India/Russias court, not much we can do now" is such blatant hypocrisy it still sickens me every time I encounter it. Please don't spread it.
You cannot solve a puzzle by picking out one piece. You solve a puzzle by looking at all the pieces and not stylising yourself as the moral hero and assuming that everyone else will follow. That is short-sighted thinking.
A per capita figure may play a role in politics in negotiations, but it is not relevant for solving the problem.
It is like accusing a Norwegian living in a fjord of wasting water. For example, it is completely irrelevant how high the per capita consumption of an Icelander is. Or a Greenlander. Because it doesn't solve the problem.
Yes, the US has a higher consumption. But it's just 334 million inhabitants vs 1,440 million in China (which still puts America in the top five, but far behind China).
If you really want to solve the problem then you need to develop a practical solution for China.
But let me ask you a question: Let's imagine that everything is suddenly perfect in your country. The economy has suffered brutally because of all the changes, but you are now the world leader in CO2 per capita consumption. What do you think happens then?
The CO2 footprint of an Icelander is EXACTLY as relevant as the footprint of a Chinese citizen. Just because Iceland, as a whole, has less effect than China as a whole does not absolve it from contributing THEIR part in any form.
Just reconsider your argument: If China is split into 20 independent nation states, then suddenly NONE of those would be "relevant to solving the problem"?
> You solve a puzzle by looking at all the pieces and not stylising yourself as the moral hero and assuming that everyone else will follow.
You, as a nation, can ABSOLUTELY not expect to first not even come close to doing your part and then let others pick up the slack for you, just because "there are ten others and only one of me, whatever I do won't make or break things anyway".
> The economy has suffered brutally because of all the changes, but you are now the world leader in CO2 per capita consumption. What do you think happens then?
This is a complete strawman. You are not going to beat developing nations in CO2/capita. India/Africa is below 2 tons per year right now, there is simply NO WAY that the US or even EU could even come close to competing with that in YEARS. What you can and have to do is approach the lower emissions of developing nations, demonstrating that a wealthy modern society is feasible without excessive CO2 emissions-- then you help developing nations in not exceeding your level.
It is very obvious to me that it's MUCH easier to cut 1 of 15 tons of CO2/year for a wealthy American (=> "buy a hybrid car for wife/kids instead of another SUV"), than it is to save 200kg each for five Indian rice farmers (=> "no heating in winter?").
It seems to me that you are not at all interested in a real solution to the problem. For you, the solution is already clear: everyone has to make their contribution, no matter how big or small.
The interesting thing is that your solution is not problem-driven, but purely ideological. Whether the solution can be implemented practicably, from my point of view doesn't seem to be any interest to you - as long as all subordinate themselves to some kind of strange socialist maxim, in which not the individual counts but only the people (in this case a kind of state union).
Because a problem-oriented approach for a solution would be to look at the number of political systems and what part of the CO2 budget they control. It makes a fundamental difference to implement effects in 20 different systems or in one. Because time matters. And therefore efficiency. So why waste time on Iceland if China plays a much more fundamental role in the issue.
So if China were divided into 20 political systems - states - the situation would be different. But it isn't. Again, it seems to me that you don't care about the structure of the problem as long as everyone follows the given morality plan.
And to answer your question - the first and only interest of an Indian rice farmer is to care about it's family. To fight starvation. And maybe that his or her children may have a better life than being an Indian rice farmer - so they spend their money rather on school education than having a single thought on global warming.
The same is roughly true for China. China's first interest is prosperity for its citizens. You don't stand at the head of such a country without looking at the needs of your own people.
Your whole solution is already going against the very nature of man: to be an egoist driven by instincts.
Do you really believe that the goals will be achieved worldwide? What if someone resists to join in? Do you then want to enforce these goals with weapons?
What I would really like to know is: Do you seriously believe that in the next 5-10 years humanity will overcome its differences and together put its economic interests aside to achieve the goal? And all this without the greatest social riots ever seen?
So do you really see a realistic possibility that the problem is solved in the next 10 years? And what happens if not?
> Your whole solution is already going against the very nature of man: to be an egoist driven by instincts.
And your solution is to push all the effort on others, because there are more of them? You still did not address in the slightest how this could ever work-- how are you going to convince the Chinese people that they need to reduce their emissions from 8 to 5 tons each, while EVERY american citizen emits 15?!
> It makes a fundamental difference to implement effects in 20 different systems or in one. Because time matters. And therefore efficiency.
How so? Every nation is going to implement these on their own anyway, and this can all happen in parallel. The US is not gonna be any faster or slower in electrifying vehicles or cleaning up power generation just because China does the same at the same time...
> What I would really like to know is: Do you seriously believe that in the next 5-10 years humanity will overcome its differences and together put its economic interests aside to achieve the goal? And all this without the greatest social riots ever seen?
This is not black or white, and every investment towards getting rid of fossils is already a step where someone put sustainability above economics. So YES, because this is already happening (to a degree). There is also historical precedent with getting rid of leaded fuel and CFCs, where international cooperation worked out decently.
But I still believe that we're gonna fail the 2°C threshold because we did too little too late.
> And your solution is to push all the effort on others, because there are more of them? You still did not address in the slightest how this could ever work-- how are you going to convince the Chinese people that they need to reduce their emissions from 8 to 5 tons each, while EVERY american citizen emits 15?!
Negotiation only works when it benefits both sides. Also, your statement is not correct - not EVERY American produces 15 because this is a statistical figure. In the US, industry (and the associated lifestyle) is inefficient in terms of CO2 emissions. And of course the government will be reluctant to transform so as not to jeopardise the wellbeing of its citizens and the re-election that comes with it.
The negotiations are exclusively about tangible facts, not about any morally felt superiority. And in doing so, the government always looks after its own advantages first.
> How so? Every nation is going to implement these on their own anyway, and this can all happen in parallel. The US is not gonna be any faster or slower in electrifying vehicles or cleaning up power generation just because China does the same at the same time...
Contracts are something for the public to show everyone that you care. But in fact they are worth nothing as a guarantee. And it is particularly practical if each nation implements this for itself - so you can give it a certain priority, but in Xi's calculation of his own preservation of power, this will certainly not play a major role.
Simple example: The EU has a stability pact. If you break it over a period of several years, you have to expect sanctions. This has been applied several times for some countries (Italy, etc.). Then came Germany. And broke it over several years. But nothing happened. Why? Because Germany is too important as a donor for the EU.
A treaty is only worth something if someone with power can use it as an argument. But someone with power can also not care about the treaty and can break it at will. Later, they simply negotiate a new one.
> But I still believe that we're gonna fail the 2°C threshold because we did too little too late.
The world is constantly changing. Yes, climate is changing. It doesn't matter how much influence humans (a very dominant part of the ecosystem after all) have on it. We are part of the system and of course we influence it.
One could also see this as an opportunity. The melting of the glaciers is just revealing old Roman roads that people used in the past. So we've been at this point before without the apocalypse breaking in.
The problem I see is rather these completely detached ideological discussions. Science now sees itself as a political actor rather than an advisor. "Last warning" sounds like parents who are not happy with their offspring. Thus they undermine their credibility. Why should I trust statistics from a politician? Irrevocable cliff points? That's rubbish. I have been studying the behaviour of complex, non-deterministic, feedback systems for over 20 years. Climate belongs exactly to this class. In none of these systems has it been possible to see "irreversible cliff points". These systems consist partly of structure, partly of chaos. And they are constantly optimising themselves. They change.
So it makes little difference whether a human being or a volcano causes this change. We should rather invest in precautions for the changes than try to control the world climate from above. We should try to give nature space - to coexist.
Instead in Germany, they are cutting down ancient forests to build wind turbines. Nobody is interested in the fact that wind and sun are not reliable energy suppliers. You can't run a country and say to a steel industry: "Hey, tomorrow you can produce again. There should be a strong wind". The first priority is the well-being of the population. Because if you ignore that, very quickly you have a vote out or a revolution on your hands.
So instead of finding a way to coexist with nature, they prefer to discuss CO2 certificates and flat rates for buses and trains. Where are the discussions to clean the oceans? So instead of preparing for this - or creating more space for nature - we pave everything over with solar cells. Nobody cares that in 20 years we will have a huge mountain of toxic waste. But in the same time future generations are always used as an argument. What a mockery.
At the moment, the whole topic is incredibly emotionally heated. As if we were facing an apocalypse. That's nonsense. When I was at school (this was in the late 80s), the impending apocalypse was acid rain and dying forests. My kids would never see a tree because the environment would be so brutally destroyed.
Then came the apocalypse with the baby seals, then the destruction of the oceans, then the insects, now the climate. And I look out and I still see forests (yes, we have less insects and we should work fixing this).
So there are two possibilities: Either we have just so escaped the apocalypse through heroic action - or it was simply exaggerated. Of course, it must have been the former, because you have to pat yourself on the back for something. Admitting to yourself that you may have been on the wrong track is not an option for many.
I'll give you the following prediction from my experience so far: yes, in 30 years it will get a bit warmer (we can finally grow olives in Germany again) but otherwise the world will keep turning. It didn't kill the Romans, it won't kill us either. We humans will have adapted and will still be arguing about climate change 30 years from now. And the following generation will be very disgruntled about the "last generation" - after all, they will have to justify why they are making demands again.
I am not trying to communicate anything; just reacting with absolute bewilderment at somebody who is so far removed from reality, that he seemingly has not stepped outside in the past decade.
People generally do not respond to insults. It only takes a little imagination to see how you react when someone swears at you. Invert the situation. It is a basic empathy test that they fail.
