Comment by sarchertech
7 days ago
China produces 1/3 of the world’s CO2. They already produce more per capita than all other large developed countries except Australia, the US, and Russia. And their rate of growth is higher than all of those countries except Russia.
There’s no way to force them to do anything, but this is not that action of a nation that “believes in climate change”.
That's while being the world's factory, having lots of green energy, electric cars and an ACUTE motivation to reduce oil imports. Coal is a problem but at least they're not canceling half-finished green energy products when administrations change.
Sure they are building solar infrastructure. But they’re also still increasing co2 emissions. If you are the autocratic leader with almost total control of 1/3 of the worlds co2, and you believe that climate change is an existential threat, you wouldn’t be increasing co2 emissions. Xi could reduce co2 emissions with the stroke of a pen.
So he obviously doesn’t think it’s that much of a threat.
Xi could theoretically reduce GDP and associated emissions with the stroke of a pen[1], and so could most legislatures. None are doing it.
Building up alternative energy is a work in progress for anyone, they're leaders on electric cars which is good but they won't get off coal until they (or someone) figures out managing a grid with 80%+ of mostly-intermittent inputs from wind and solar.
[1] Not really, for the same reason as the legislatures, it's horrible politically. Dictatorships and especially the Chinese system have broader bases of support and political activity than most American media discourse assumes.
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are you advocating for not changing administrations?
Is that a good faith question? Please check the site guidelines.
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Just to quote a poster above:
"You seem to think China is the evil polluter here. Just sort by per capita, and you'll see it's not even in the top 10% most polluting per capita."
It is just barely out of the top 10%. 27 out of 207. If you remove counties ahead of with tiny populations like Palau with 40k people, Iceland with 400k, and Greenland with 50k, it is in the top 10%.
Since they produce 1/3 of the co2, 1/3 of the reduction the world needs, needs to come from them. And they are still increasing their emissions. This is not the action of an autocratic leader who believes in climate change.