World Emissions Hit Record High, but the EU Leads Trend Reversal

India is not in even in the top 30 countries that can realistically reduce emissions. They have per capita emissions lower than any European country, except maybe Iceland. Lower than the Nordics, much, much lower than France or Germany or Spain. There's no way for them to reduce their emissions without severely impacting lifestyle even more drastically - which is not at all the case for us here in Europe.

china is world factory

stop buying cheap things from china then

Then there's is no progress to be made. Developing using cheap energy regardless of emissions, i.e. the harm/ethics (positives) of poverty reduction > pollution any day. US/west sets the baseline for historic not just annual per capita emission - annual doesn't capture historic emissions for building infra/capita base. Many countries still have magnitude more steel to smelt and concrete to pour. If developing / low middle income countries does most of the growing/developing on clean generation, better, if west wants to subsidize that like prior climate pledges, they're welcome to. Until then, their per capita is floor of what everyone should aim for. Ultimately, global emissions isn't really worth worrying, as in even if it's existential for some tiny islands or climate death zones, there's shit all do because most of the world who desires to be rich and comfortable will just chug along.

Would you say that lowering the climate goals / increasing emissions could meaningfully alleviate pressure on the housing market, migration, groceries, energy, etc.?

You live in netherlands

less emission = less artic ice melt = less sea water rising

how can you say this??? while netherlands is probably need one the most???

You might not see the benefit directly, but the idea is that we must do this for future generations. If everybody keeps looking at the others, nothing happens. The ones that can lead must lead.

> But at what cost?

I can’t help thinking of the satirical cartoon “What if it’s a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing” ;)

Because we stole from the future for the gains and quality of life today, and now we must pay the debt back (global low carbon electric generation transition, EVs, heat pumps, decarbonization, and sequestration of excess CO2 emitted since industrialization began).

If you take a step back, what did the netherlands look like 100 years ago? What was the wealth inequality split? How much capital was owned by the elite vs the commoner?

You will see that the last 70 years have really been an outlier in history due to the great reset of WW2 and the elite losing their wealth. The current trends are actually the return back to historical norms.

The problem here is not green energy sandbagging the economy in NL and making life unaffordable for the commoner, the problem here is that wealth/capital accumulates faster than wages and therefore as the economy slows down an ever growing slice of GDP goes to capital owners.

I would suggest if you want to solve this problem, do not blame the green energy — it is a distraction — instead look to your elected representatives in government to form wealth tax and land tax legislation to curb the positive feedback loop of wealth accumulation, lest you become a serf to the elite again.

Take a look at Thomas Piketty if you are interested in learning more.

You don’t think a livable planet is a good benefit for your money? Especially for later generations?

And same time here Finland we have super cheap electricity. It is just that you don’t build enough new capacity and nuclear power is no go.

One of the pressures causing migration is global warming screwing up agriculture, particularly in poorer regions.

All you say is true, except adopting green solutions is not a plan to be achieved in 4 or 5 years. I think modern politics has being more focused on the continuation of one or a group in power or reaching the power rather then advancing towards common goals. In times of hardship, people want the solution for their big problems to be easy. I can't buy something increase minimum weight (inflation) Missing health or jobs, blame immigrants not the lack of investment over the last 20 years nor the future consequences.

It anguishes people that their problems are not truly solvable but only briefly relieved until the side effects are uncovered.

And it is the same here. The advancements of politics in the development of sustainable and renewable energy was not enough. There were way too many counter incentives to actually act serious on it. The lobby of oil, etc...

Many of the politicies that were adopted post COVID could have been adopted 15y or 30y before. The lack of restructuration of the taxation over the companies exponentially increasing the usage of electricity or profit with diminishing employees is the same is another example.

For now, people are focusing on a war that will only exist because people are focusing in a war that does not exist. A trillion dollars in war insteadof towards actually solving the causes for the potential war is a slap on the faces of poor people (aka us) who will be sent to kill other ones children.

I digress

While energy is expensive, I find it hard to blame on the "green stuff".

The majority of the energy cost increases in the last few years are because fossil fuels got more expensive for europeans, as cheap gas and oil from Russia wasn't cheap nor very available any more. Lower emissions technologies require much less energy: Heat pumps, induction stoves, electric goods and private transport. Renewables are furthermore more resilient to supply shocks, as they aren't as dependent on from despotic states such as Russia, Saudi Arabia or (seemingly) the US for much of the (fossil) energy. The correct response would be to electrify as much as possible (much less energy required) and produce electricity without the need for importing fossil fuels.

The housing situation sucks, but while many rules discourage housing production, only a smaller subset is there to reduce emissions (requirements about amenities such as outlets, room size and layout, parking and local opposition have little to do with emissions). Many countries such as the US which care much less also suffer heavily as well from being unable to build enough housing.

I have little idea about what specifically the netherlands are doing on climate, but it has at least not been my impression that they were the "best boy in class".

What about the costs not doing nothing.

The consequences of climate change will also affect normal people more than the top.

> Housing market is the worst, too little houses are being build because of all the rules.

I find other reasons way more convincing:

Construction can’t keep up with efficiency gains of the rest of the world. This has less to do with regulation and more with failure to automate as much. Basically baumoll’s cost disease.

Centralization means that everyone wants to live in the same places. We hardly can create new land to build on, especially where we need it the most.

Missing or wrong regulation of cars in cities. They take up an enormous amount of space.

Financialisation of the housing market. Housing can either be affordable or a good investment asset. Not both.

> But at what cost?

Most of this improvement is driven exactly by cost reductions. In other words: the CO2 emissions are falling BECAUSE solar is cheap.

Lowering CO2 is the thing that SAVES money.

You’re from the Netherlands, and can’t see the negatives of sea level rise?

Isn't the consensus from climate scientists that emission reductions are totally necessary, and there is no solution which is solely based on capture of greenhouse gases or cooling technologies? Even if reducing emissions is not enough, I thought it was clear that it needs to be done - and the economic impact is a necessary evil, since in reality we are just seeing the reversal of economic benefits obtained at the cost of planetary temperatures.

> We need to be investing in solutions that could actually work, like stratospheric aerosol injection

The problem with aerosol injection is that it doesn't actually lower CO2 levels. It just adds a cooling effect that can counter the CO2 warming effect. The aerosols don't stay in the stratosphere long so you need to be regularly injecting more.

If you stop those regular injections the warming quickly comes back.

If we have a strong plan to reach near net zero CO2 emissions in some given timeframe and we really can stick to it then adding aerosol injections so that we can stop the warming sooner might be OK.

If we don't have that there is a good chance that some large emitters will decide that since the aerosol injections are holding warming at bay there is no reason to not increase emissions as much as they want. Most will acknowledge that we should reduce emissions, but with no immediate consequences they will put it off.

Then in a few decades if something disrupts the regular aerosol injects we could get decades worth of warming over a few months.

That would not be good.

And not taking care of the source of the problem? It’s like only pumping the water out of your flooded basement but not willing to fix the leak.

Which is what everyone should be doing if we are to survive as a species

It is not a coincidence.

The carbon border tax (CBAM) that is coming into effect is a good policy to help with that. Should have been done much earlier.

You do realize that the consequences of a failed reduction of carbon dioxide emissions will hit mankind in 50 to 100 years. Our children and grandchildren pay the price for the mistakes we do now.

> they emit a measly 8% of total, the earth will feel nothing

Earth doesn’t care, it’s not about protecting Earth it’s about protecting us. Warmer climate is better for many other species besides humans.

The climate doesn't care about per capita figures and historical responsibility. Besides which, emissions have grown so much since 2000 that historical is kind of moot. Per capita is kind of silly too, all the people in the country I live in could reduce their emissions and we'd still have high per capita because such a large amount of it goes to industry which exports, funnily enough, primarily to China.

We should focus on reducing emissions in every place and way possible. Carbon sinks are temporary, and suffer from the problem that they may end up releasing the carbon again in the future. We can't really rely on them for real accounting against emissions.

I'm not sure why you've brought ocean fishing into it. But having lots of aquaculture doesn't excuse other behaviours by China or any other fishing nation.