China.
Seems like a deliberate effort not to mention it in the title and abstract, despite the text clearly defining "East Asia" as "mainly China".
Also major contributor to plastic pollution in the ocean (from rivers) and #1 in CO2 emissions. All the while western economies hurt themselves and consumers in vain efforts instead of being serious about the issue and confronting its major contributor.
It's a scientific paper, they need to be precise with language. Saying "East Asia" in the title and then specifying in the paper that most of the impact comes from China is precise. Saying "China" in the title would be misleading, saying "mostly China" would be incomplete and imprecise.
If they put China in the title it'll be flagged
China is currently the one setting a good example on the global stage:
https://old.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/comments/1lvoi0x/theres_a...
Meanwhile, US leadership is on team "Drill baby, drill"
Who is China producing FOR tho? Doesn’t seem like a fair assessment
Per capita consumption is a much better metric for deciding who is more responsible for the pollution, which will point the finger right back to... the West [0].
[0]: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-co2-per-capit...Pollution is not CO2
Your figures are for who produces CO2 and nothing to do with pollution
CO2 is the topic under discussion. (Also, this is not “nothing to do with pollution”.)
I disagree entirely. The total emissions are absolutely important, and our planet doesn't care about whether one ton of emissions served 1 or 1,000 people.
A complete picture of blame absolutely should include per-capita, ultimate use (who buys the end product of China's emissions), and historical contributions. However, to ignore China's absolute , ongoing contribution as the world's largest emitter (by far: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co2-emissions-per-...) is clearly an error.
2023 totals:
China: 11.90 billion tons, trending up
USA: 4.91 billion tons, trending down
The planet doesn't care about arbitrary lines humans draw on their maps. It just cares about the worldwide total emissions.
Unless you can make a good argument that some humans have a natural or divine right to a bigger share of whatever total worldwide emissions budget we decide we can accept any kind of per country instead of per capita base allocation [1] make no sense.
This can be seen by considering what happens if countries split. A large country that is over their allocation in a per country system can simply split into two or more smaller countries, with the split designed so that each of the new countries has about an equal fraction of the former country's emissions.
This results in no change in the total worldwide emissions, but now that set of people that were before over their total allocation and high on the list of people that need to make big changes now are all in countries under their allocation and in the "should do something about it eventually but no need for big changes now" group of countries.
If they are clever about how they split the original large country into smaller countries they can immediately make free trade treaties and travel treaties between them that effectively make a common market with free travel like much of Europe now has so the split into multiple countries doesn't even change life much for the citizens of the new countries.
Whatever countries have now moved to the top of the "need big changes now" list because of this now have incentive to split, and so on.
[1] By base allocation I mean whatever share they would be allocated in a world with no trade. Actual allocations need to take into account people emitting more because they are making/growing things for other people which reduces the emissions directly attributable to those other people.
If you can make the case to China be my guest. I don't think it's interested in splitting up the country to reduce it's lead role in such emissions.
The point of the country splitting hypothetical was to show that a country's total emission is not a useful measure of whether they are doing better or worse than any other given country on addressing emissions.
A useful measure should not be affected by where we happen to draw political boundaries on our maps.
If you ignore that countries really do exist and really do produce those emissions in order to succeed in their economic objectives, sure, then it's not useful.
Outside that thought experiment it actually is useful, and that's why we have data showing that China leads, by far, in producing emissions. By the way, they lead in methane and nitrous oxide as well -- it isn't just carbon dioxide.
https://ourworldindata.org/greenhouse-gas-emissions
It is not useful because it ignores population.
One property a useful measure of something undesirable (like CO2 emissions) should have is that if you identify the country that is doing the worst by that measure, and they were to change so that their economy works like that of the second worst country and their people live a lifestyle nearly identical to the people of the second country, that should improve the thing being measured.
Total by country fails at that. If China were to change so that they are basically a clone of the US economy and lifestyle their emissions would go way up.
Conversely, if the US were to change to be a China clone that would result in a big decrease in total emissions.
No, the description of what actually is produced, and by who, is accurate and useful.
If you want to suppose those these two countries' populations changed lifestyles, I can also entertain that argument. You'd want to consider the economic reasons why one produces the emissions it does right now, and then suppose how that changes. In such a case, who is purchasing China's manufacturing output, and who is now purchasing that of the US?
Ignoring the world's largest and fastest-growing source of emissions simply because its per-capita rate is lower is a distraction from solving the actual problem.
It's an enticing "what if," but does not reflect the reality of the real data we have today. That data says China is the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.
If it is faster growing as a consequence of greater population growth, then that seems like maybe a point.
Now, yes, if we consider just China, then that being a major contributor to world CO2 emissions does imply that if we are to have total emissions under some total global rate, then, well, the total emissions from China need to be below that rate, certainly.
However, it seems a hard ask to try to get China to put stricter per-capita limitations on themselves than we are willing to endure ourselves?
Now, if the higher population places reduced their emissions and the lower population places stayed the same, that might be sufficient, but it also seems a bit, free-riding for those lower population areas?
Also, yeah the consumption of the goods produced seems pretty relevant.
> However, it seems a hard ask to try to get China to put stricter per-capita limitations on themselves than we are willing to endure ourselves?
It is especially a hard ask when you consider that because of the longevity of CO2 in the atmosphere there is more US/Europe CO2 in the atmosphere currently than there is Chinese CO2.
The US and Europe spent well over 100 years massively emitting in order to build up the levels of prosperity they now enjoy. If everyone else that wants prosperity tries to follow that same path it will be disastrous.
The only way to give every country a chance to reach a decent level of prosperity without using a a disastrous amount of fossil fuels is for (1) countries that achieve prosperity to rapidly and drastically cut their emission by switching to renewable energy, and (2) the prosperous countries provide subsidies for renewables to the countries that are trying to become prosperous so many of the latter can skip much of the "fossil fuel our way to prosperity" phase and go more directly to the prosperous renewal energy powered country endgame.
> Also, yeah the consumption of the goods produced seems pretty relevant.
In a fair system it is relevant, but as an adjustment after population. A fair system would start with the amount of total annual emissions that we decide (somehow) we need to keep under as a world, divide that by the number of people, and then assign each country that quotient times there population as their annual emission allowance.
If a country emits more than that they would have to get some other country to give them some of that country's emission allowance. That could be incorporated into international trade by making it so outsourcing production of something to another country requires you to provide that other country with enough of your emission allowance to cover the making of that thing.
I did not possibly make my arguments clear.
China has higher emission, because China has higher number of factories. The factories produce stuff. Where do all that stuff go? And for whom are all that stuff produced?
Not entirely China, or Africa, or India. A vast amount of that stuff flows to... the West.
So, if the West chooses to reduce its consumption significantly, the CO2 emissions of China will go down.
The consumers have to take the blame. It's as clear as that. And the West should fund climate-resilient infra for people and green tech for China and India and Vietnam. Because it is to West that stuff goes. But that's another issue. It is because there is demand in the West, China produce stuff.
If every American buys only one pair of shoes and a couple of new tshirts every year, and not more, and buys a smartphone after using one for 4 years, not less, the CO2 emission of China will go down.
I understood your argument, and I did already address the point you want to continue with here.
> ultimate use (who buys the end product of China's emissions), and historical contributions. However, to ignore China's absolute , ongoing contribution as the world's largest emitter (by far: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co2-emissions-per-...) is clearly an error.
"Ultimate use" discusses consumption by the West. This fact does not exonerate China, as China directly causes the emissions in order to satisfy its economic ambitions, and profits from its _factual_ role as the leading emitter of greenhouse gases. If China did not offer these exports, perhaps someone else would. But right now, it's China.
I also threw in "historical contributions" to throw you a bone. Nonetheless, right now, its China and China's emissions are, even still, increasing.
If you want to pass the buck to the West that's fine, but the reality is that China is producing more emissions than anybody else is, and it does it for the benefit of China at the expense of the planet.
The article is about reducing pollution, so in this context, they're doing a good thing.
This is a case of China trying to reduce pollution. Reduce aerosol emissions. The impact of this is lower cooling (aerosol interaction results in atmospheric cooling)
What exactly has the US done to hurt their economy? They have subsidized green energy, but China does that to a much greater extent.