Comment by rayiner
6 hours ago
> The only solution we have is put less in the air in the first place
That’s not a solution either, because the developing world is not going to stop increasing their CO2 output until they fully industrialize. They’re just not. Feel free to seek reductions where you can, but don’t think of it as a solution because it’s not.
The technical problems with CO2 capture are far more solvable than the sociological problems with net zero emissions.
Actually, solar and other renewables are making it easy to skip legacy hydrocarbon based infrastructure and the 'developing world' (not the west) is snapping it up [1]. Additionally, the big problem countries aren't really the developing world. China is rapidly hitting its targets and other than a brief moment where they threw up a lot of coal fired generation to meet immediate demand it looks like they will very rapidly decarbonize in the coming years and start having so much excess renewable energy that they will pay people to use it for manufacturing [2][3].
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/30/climate/solar-south-afric...
[2] https://energy.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/renewable/g...
[3]https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/06/23/china-hits-1-tw-solar...
I think they are, but more by accident. They’re going to industrialize with renewables, batteries, EVs and electric everything. It’s inevitable due to economics
They will increase emissions more slowly than European countries did at the same phase in their development, but emissions will still go up a ton compared to now. China's CO2 emissions per capita is now almost double that of France. India has gone from 0.5 tons/person in 1980 to over 2 tons/person today. They're building some renewables, but they're also building a ton of coal and gas. The EU retired 11 GW of coal in 2024, while China built 30GW and India built another 6 GW.
It's not just economics, it's logistics. Countries like Bangladesh don't have the space to build wind and solar, and they don't have the sophistication to manage long distance grids with batteries, EVs, etc. That's why they keep building more coal. They're not stupid, there is just are practical concerns these countries confront that don't exist in countries that have more central organizational capacity.
And the math just sucks. Say countries like India industrialize with a high percentage of renewables, etc., so they end up with developed economies at just double the current CO2 output of India (4 tons/capita). That would mean that the growth in CO2 output from the subcontinent alone (India+Pakistan+Bangladesh) would exceed the current CO2 output of the entire EU.
China couldn’t jump past the fossil fuel stage of technology development, but now its technology development and gigantic manufacturing capacity allows it to help poorer nations fully bypass that stage.
I think it’s entirely possible that giving first world money to poor nations to buy Chinese solar and batteries is a more cost effective solution to carbon emissions than paying western skilled labour wages to decarbonize energy production in the west.
Of course, I’m sure you’ll have tremendous success convincing “candy for dinner” American voters to pay third worlders to spend in China
Developing world generally has a lot more sunlight, and now very cheap solar energy.
It's not cheaper when you factor in the batteries, the need for sophisticated electric grids, etc. China and India continue to build huge amounts of coal power. It's not because they're too stupid to buy the cheaper option.
it is still cheaper. In the past decade, China has gone from their electricity being from 66% coal to under 58% this year, with the amount of wind and solar climbing from <5% to >12% over the same period. Their coal usage has gone up in absolute terms, but at current rates of solar and wind expansion that will reverse itself in the next 5 years with coal plants used increasingly as peaker plants. The only reason China is building coal plants still is that global pv production isn't sufficient to transition all power to it immediately.