> CO2 since 1750! This isn't serious. Who is currently today doing the thing?
> Does the climate care about per capita?
It does care about CO2 since 1750 though because that CO2 never went away. It's at least as important as, if not more than "Who is currently today doing the thing?"
No. The incremental CO2 is what is harming us. We're already experiencing the effects of 1750 to present. What happens from now on will incrementally deteriorate the climate.
Total historic emissions is the ONLY serious metric. Since it accounts for all capital buildouts, it takes centuries of emission heavy construction to get developed countries where they are. Countries are going to emit more when they're in steel and concrete phase of nation building.
Does climate care about emissions? Does climate care about changing? No. Climate doesn't care it cycles back to ice age.
Humans (hypothetically) care about climate change. It's a fundmentally a geo-political problem, which means the solution is geopolitically agreed on metric. Currently it rhetorically per capita, but arguably it should be historic per capita, because per capita itself is geopolitic concession metric that shifts responsibility away from historic carbon debt of developed nations towards developing nations.
Because it's not uniformly developed, there's still 100s of millions who are underdeveloped. If we're sensible we'll cap a limit on what first place should emit per capita and that will be the benchmark everyone targets / settles at. Right now that's high income per capita emissions. Realistically, it doesn't stop until some agreed/enforced per capital emission ceiling and if that agreed ceiling takes us to 4/5/6 degrees then that's where we're going to settle. Ultimately the fair requirement is suggest countries have X historic per captia emissions adjustment to unfuck themselves / prepare for climate change. If wealthy countries are generous they can subsidize the transition, but we know that's unlikely so really it's about how (or whether) to mitigate the free for all.
In an even fairer world, huge renewable exporters would get credit / per capita adjustments for exporting net renewable and fossil exporers would get opposite. Oh and countries with high TFR or advanced economies with high immigration that multiplies an immigrant's emission (i.e. poor -> rich flow) would get penalized. But that's even less likely to happen because it's obvious whose interest these sensible proposals undermine, because climate change isn't a scientific of enviromental problem, it's a geopolitcal one.
What matters is how much CO2 was dumped in the atmosphere (and to stop doing it, China is transitioning, the US administration tells everyone it's a scam...)
I'm no expert, but if these data are correct, emissions in China are growing dramatically, and in the US they are trending downward at (honestly) an unexpectedly impressive rate.
China is currently emitting well over 2x what the US does, and extrapolation from the last 25 years suggests that China will exceed the US, on a per-capita basis, in a handful of years.
This is somewhat counter-narrative. But assuming it's correct, the questions become: How bad would it be if China was not taking the problem seriously, and how much better would the US be if they were taking the problem seriously?
It's obvious you don't believe a word of whatever you're saying all over this comment thread. Especially
> The climate doesn't care about improvement, only about total tons of CO2
Given how easily you pooh-poohed cumulative historical emissions in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45509432. The climate also cares about all carbon, past and present. Not just the carbon emitted by China specifically today on October 7, 2025, as you keep repeating. (Only current emissions matter, right? So even China's emissions yesterday and the day before are meaningless).
All of your arguments are extremely in bad faith.
I don't understand why you're doing this though. What do you gain? Is it just about "China bad"? Or about denying the developed world's responsibility for climate change? Or is it for the pleasure of trolling? Please help me understand what's going through your mind.
This thread is highlighting that climate change initiatives are about harming the West in favor of everyone else.
China is by far the biggest carbon emitter. People try to obscure that through "per capita" and "historical cumulative" figures and "percentage improvement".
The way people contort themselves to protect China, the mega-emitter is laughable. They improved 2.7%!! So they went from 31% to 30.92% of total manmade CO2?
You're not serious about the climate, you just want to punish the US/West.
> climate change initiatives are about harming the West
By introducing a cheaper, less-polluting source of energy? If harm is cheaper electricity and cleaner air, please harm me.
> in favor of everyone else.
"Everyone else" is also going solar. Very quickly. It's cheap.
> The way people contort themselves to protect China, the mega-emitter is laughable
Pretend it's 20 countries. Then it's no longer the #1 emitter. Unless you're suggesting some kind of rapid depopulation over there that's all they can do. Btw they also had a one child policy for so long, so they've already tried rapid depopulation themselves.
> They improved 2.7%!! So they went from 31% to 30.92% of total manmade CO2
To 30.163%, assuming your 31% was even true. In one year. Don't lie about simple arithmetic. It makes you less credible about everything else.
> You're not serious about the climate, you just want to punish the US/West
I want the US/west to adopt the cheapest and fastest growing source of energy ASAP. I don't want more bowing down to fossil fuel interests, and higher energy prices, like we've seen in the past 2 years. The latter is punishment.
You're definitely not serious about the climate. Your arguments add up to "China bad. Even if China improves, China still bad. Any number about China good can be interpreted as China bad based on arbitrary criteria that I alone decide are important. Oh and I don't wanna do anything about climate because and it'll hurt me (somehow for reasons that aren't important) and btw have you seen how bad China is?".
Unless you're getting paid by the fossil fuel industry, I don't see how arguing all this benefits you in any way.
