Extreme heat is pushing India to the brink of ‘survivability.’ One obvious solution is also a big part of the problem | CNN

Lee Duna@lemmy.nz to World News@lemmy.world – 162 points –
Extreme heat is pushing India to the brink of ‘survivability.’ One obvious solution is also a big part of the problem | CNN
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India and China are a couple of the biggest polluters. They also just happen to be in an area that will be one of the hardest hit, especially with their size of their population.

Let's look at the data, shall we?

  • the top 4 planet heating polluters of 2022 are China, India, the USA and the EU ... responsible for 82% of emission in 2022
  • China may be the biggest emitter overall, but the average American is responsible for nearly twice as much climate pollution as the average person in China Source
  • historically the USA is the top CO² polluter ever, contributing over 400 billion tonnes since 1751 ... more than twice what China has contributed
  • the EU is second to the USA at 300 billion tonnes since 1751 Source

Sure it's always the same discussion with historical pollution. It's cool, nice point, whatever, but we've got to stop warming NOW, not let every country in the world catch up to a couple of centuries of pollution accumulated by developed nations.

Meanwhile the US has hit record oil extraction and natural gas exports this year. Big load of good developed nations are doing.

America knew in the 70's there was going to be problems and did nothing to stop it.

Yelling at other nations who were simply trying to catch up with the standard the US set is pointless.

It’s way too late to say “what about …”. We can’t afford to let the yahoos delay us by saying that and it’s too late to try to defend it in fairness. Really the only fair option is for developed countries to invest in renewable energy worldwide: coal might be cheaper in the short term but let’s help you build out solar

They are the biggest producers, but that is because most of the world places their production in China and India. America is the biggest consumer of those products.

It really is the blame game isnt it? Like is it western world fault for buying those goods and the emissions from their production. Or is it the place that allowed those goods to be made there with those emissions? If it wasnt produced would america buy them? If there wasnt american demand would india and/or China produce them?

China is definitely not one of the highest polluters per capita. And that's also taking into the fact that most of the Western world is produced there.

But it is the second biggest polluter overall.

You don’t get to pretend that doesn’t count for anything because Xi and his buddies steal from their citizens.

China is also blasting through their Paris commitments like they're nothing. It's actually absurd how much they're going to beat their Paris commitments by.

Even as China builds new supercritical coal plants, they're tanking utilization of existing coal plants to the point where peak fossil fuel use (according to the IEA) could happen THIS YEAR.

I don’t know if you’re attempting to play the fairness card with current emissions while ignoring historical and ignoring per capita but no one’s buying that here.

Assuming everyone is only in it for their own greedy short term gain without care for everyone else

  • US can handle it. Sucks for the rest of the world
  • China is racing for renewables, EVs, rail. They’re going to beat their own record at transitioning a huge economy with huge people
  • India is going to struggle. They already have problems with climate, lack of water, over population, and poverty. They don’t want to obstruct growth by investing in renewable energy, but their own climate, their own people will be among the hardest hit. Now the solution is buying air conditioners for all those people? It may be fair but it’s too late and they can’t afford the cost to their own climate