> Nothing will change until developed rich countries are starting to hurt.

Ironic OECD countries actually REDUCED their emissions based on a peak in 2007 and continue to do so. Not reduced as a percentage of GDP or adjusted for population growth, but reduced in absolute levels. It's all China, but I guess it's cool to blame things on developed countries.

There are literally 100k deaths in Europe that can be prevented if they lifted restrictions on AC so that they can feel good about making a negligible effect on carbon emissions. So I think you have it opposite, how much pain do rich countries have to endure before they realize that their efforts are in vain.

And before you say "that's because the West outsources all the dirty production to China", even trade adjusted emissions are down considerably and continue to be down.

Please do some research if you're interested in this topic, it's not hard to do. Just follow the logical steps.

1. What causes global warming

2. Who produces most of these chemicals

3. Are there any global trends over the last 20 years in production of these chemicals

https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions

https://ourworldindata.org/consumption-based-co2

https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/europes-crusade-against-air-co...

The initial pain will be diffuse and not obviously caused by global warming.

For example, destabilization of equatorial countries due to wet bulb temperatures, through multiple causal paths: worse education outcomes (many days off school during hot months), worse economy (can't work outside), worse life satisfaction -> more autocracies, more water scarcity.

Then you get more emigration to the colder north, more conflict and more suffering. But not much of it is easily and directly attributable to temperatures.

Much of it is foregone upside, like GDP growth that's 3% instead of 5%.

Developed rich countries are hurting. See the wildfires across North America, massive amounts of flooding across Europe, etc.

Nothing will change until many of the global electorate stop burying their heads in the sand. These people don't change their minds until things affect them specifically. Then they change their mind, and all their former fellows tell them they're brainwashed.

This doesn't change until nearly everyone is affected, and by then we're so far into the catastrophe that the consequences don't even bear thinking about.

I've been mentally tabulating a list of reasons rich (and/or older) people should care about climate change, even if you're only looking out for your own interests:

- Your children and younger family members will have to deal with this

- Climate change is causing increasingly worse turbulence for airplanes

- It will disproportionately affect your favorite vacation spots

- Probably something about stock markets and pensions - a world constantly wracked with increasingly severe natural disasters isn't the most economically productive one

This is why I think the middle strength Global South countries, who hurt the most in the near term and have the necessary resources, will unilaterally start albedo modification. They don't need permission of rich nations and it will become an existential issue that they might risk sanctions and war over. That's when it will become "our problem" (in the eyes of the extremely selfish and/or stupid members).

I think it'll start hurting sooner than that. We're already seeing property insurance rates spiking, and in some places it's even impossible to get property insurance. We could well be up for a 2008-level real estate crash. That should get Americans' attention.

Soon, we'll have millions of climate change refugees, battles over resources, regular once-in-a-century storms, more wars. We're close to the point where we'll be too busy thrashing to address the root cause.

China creates about 30–35% of global emissions. India about 8% but it is climbing fast.

What rich countries do is they just export their factories to other countries and say: look we do not pollute.

> Nothing will change until developed rich countries are starting to hurt.

There are two clear parallel points to this:

   1. Over the time frames we're discussing (even the next 50 years) how many "poor" countries will there be left? We're seeing substantial progress on economic, educational, and other fronts over the past 50 years.
   2. Will there ever be a time when the change occurring is direct and over a short enough time frame to matter to "rich" countries? Yes, it will suck if most of Florida is underwater, but this process has already started, and has been going on for 20, 30, 50 years? And most people care very little. If it takes a century for the state to completely submerge, that apathy will continue.

The bottle is half full: https://youtu.be/CFyOw9IgtjY?list=PL3A647D3FD57E0F96&t=205

A lot HAS changed. Europe even has a tax on CO2 emissions.

It's just not enough and it's very hard to convince the public to accelerate when the US not only gave up but it actively reversing to fossil fuels.

Look at the Colorado River situation to see how it's affected the US already. Now that hasn't really impacted consumers per say other than through indirect water conservation and higher consumer grocery prices (slightly not a primary driver on the latter). But it's a massive deal that will ripple out more and more in the coming years.

>people won't see it.

You are correct because it's happening already (massive wildfires burning down cities, 100 year floods every year, mass migration out of hot, dry climates) and the news will state something like "scientists are 85% certain this fire was accelerated by climate change" and then will move onto the next story. Climate change is all around us, but we refuse to see it.

Not even countries, but rich/influential people on them. And they must be hit hard to be concerned enough about it.

If some extreme weather event hits you you may lose your only house, your savings, your health, maybe a good percent of the population of rich countries are vulnerable ot that. In the other hand if someone rich and powerful in those or even somewhat poorer countries, they may buy another house, have more already, lose some money and goods but that's it.

Until those extreme weather events, floods and so on affect enough of the people those people have around, to eventually affect their business and them. But by then it will be far too late.

> The pain will come slowly, people won't see it.

I'd argue that many lower and middle class folks already feel the effects of GW, even if they may not be able to articulate it. The flip side is that developed rich countries will hurt because of this but the people in power won't care because it probably only (visibly) affects the lower class, and they can always take their jets and rockets to countries (and eventually planets!) that haven't been fucked.

And they'll spin it to blame it on immigrants somehow.

I initially supported this comment but no, I think it's worse than this. As rich countries cut back, dirty energy becomes cheaper and developing nations just use more. They'll need to use more just to fight the climate. India, for instance, is going to need a whole lot of air conditioning just to survive.

Sure, blame developed nations for getting us here, but the path forward isn't solely in the hands of those developed nations.

it depends where you live... I live in Japan now. One comment I hear often and see reflected in old TV shows is how different summers are already. 20-25 years ago it would have been considered a hot summer day around 30c.

Now every summer day is 30c+.

Also, a comment I hear often is that people didn't really need air conditioners back then. You definitely cannot get away with living in Tokyo without an air conditioners these days!

We are already seeing it in Colorado. Record low snowfall, record heat, record winds; which are a very bad set of conditions for fires.

The power company is now preemptively shutting off our power. Which is really fun in the winter.

I’m honestly not sure about the future of my hometown Boulder. The odds of it fully burning to the ground seem to increase significantly every year.

I think it will change when the people that don't believe in global warming die off, ala 'Science progresses one funeral at a time'. For the US, that's basically Boomers and Gen X [1], so I still think your 10 - 20 years estimate is decent (they don't have to _all_ die, but as more pass away I expect progress)

[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/05/26/key-findi...

> until developed rich countries are starting to hurt.

Well Spain, 12th largest by nominal GDP and the fourth-largest in Europe, isn't exactly poor and yet seems to hurt quite a bit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_in_Spain#Impact... ... but I bet the wealthiest Spaniards have air conditioning, heating, bottled water delivered at home by staff, etc to isolate themselves. That does include politicians.

So... IMHO until the richest of the rich countries hurt, then nothing will change. They (we?) are very sheltered precisely by leveraging their wealth to abstract away from the lowly difficulties of life, like the weather.

TL;DR : yes, but the more insulated feel it less and consequently, rationally, think they have more time thus postponing the process.

I don’t know, was in Haiti a few months ago and they burn all kinds of shit there. Gotta get them on solar and wind. Whatever happened to the Clinton foundation’s billions?

Nothing will happen until the super rich who define policy begin to hurt. And they won't hurt because they can exploit the situation to become even richer.

> Nothing will change until developed rich countries are starting to hurt.

The EU reduced their emissions by over a third from their peak. Their emissions per capita is less than that of China (not meant to be a dig at China who is the leader the development of renewables). Even Americans reduced their CO2 emissions by 15% in absolute terms and by about 30% per capita as well.

Why is it so hard to understand that individual people, let alone hundreds of millions of people in aggregate, can have multiple priorities? This whole doomerist attitude doesn't help anyone. If anything, it contributes to the erosion of the good things we already have. Nobody gave a damn about USAID saving millions of people until it could be weaponized against Trump/Elon for taking it away.

It's going to cause slow, constant refugee crises, which will affect everyone.

I wonder if the current war will significantly accelerate the roll out of non-fossil energy. If the Strait of Hormuz stays closed for a few more weeks there's going to be significant pain, not just for energy but things like fertilizer etc. Once you deploy a solar panel it works for 20+ years, conflict doesn't cut you off from energy.

Nothing will change until billionaires start losing money over it. Then it will be a national priority.

It's also why I've sort of resigned myself to a cynical optimism that the worst won't come to pass. The rich are not going to tolerate losing money. They will force through geoengineering stopgap measures that will save us from catastrophic warming, at the cost of unknown consequences.

This is why I vehemently disagree with those who say we shouldn't be conducting research on geoengineering. It will be done. The only question is, will we have done enough research to understand the potential consequences, or not?

Why would something "change" because "developed rich countries" hurt? Why wouldn't those leaders just roll with it and see it as inevitable, or a purification of their degenerate populations, or just another day in the end times, or whatever?

I expect "change" when people form unions or union like organisations and withhold or redistribute their labour, both waged and in more subtle forms, such as attention, and unwaged but socially important labour (e.g. women refusing to be servile homemakers and instead get guns and start soup kitchens).

> Nothing will change until developed rich countries are starting to hurt.

More specifically, nothing will change until the politicians and billionaires personally get hurt.

The negative effects of climate change need to come for them personally for them to care.

>Nothing will change until developed rich countries are starting to hurt.

They already are. China does whatever it wants en mass meanwhile.

> Nothing will change

Things have already changed!

They are already in pain but are blaming immigrants instead of trusting science.

Chaos is extactly where fascism thrives. Expect to see more trumps, not less.

Rich countries will never feel it. Look at the middle east. Already scorching desert, they build indoor ski hills...

On the plus side, I think we'll solve global warming, with technology, in a few generations.

> And honestly, wars and trump are making climate concerns so difficult to think about.

These are all related. All of them are connected to humans pushing the planetary resource limits from various directions. We're attacking Iran now in part because climate change has dramatically increased the water stress conditions making the population more susceptible to political collapse. It's also happening because it puts energy stress on our geopolitical adversaries (same with Venezuela). Trump emerged in the first place because declining American prosperity (despite GPD numbers) drove a large portion of the population to nihilism.

Well, most deforestation happens in poor underdeveloped countries. Yes, they hurt, but keep doing it.

> Nothing will change.

Fixed

The energy situation is actually changing very quickly precisely because renewables and storage are so cheap. Building a new natural gas plant today is really hard to justify in most places in the world.

Capitalism will actually save the day, because a bunch of capitalists advanced renewable technology to the point where it was cheap.

The biggest impediment to change right now is actually political interference in deployment of cheaper renewables. You see this all across the US both in intentional and unintentional ways. Trump explicitly cancels permits for wind, tries to ban solar on federal lands, and forces coal plants to keep running even when they are super expensive and raise the cost electricity.

Unintentional political impediments are also endemic in the US; permitting and interconnection of residential solar makes it 5x-6x more expensive than places like Australia, even in places like California that should be accelerating residential solar and storage.

There's a lot to be hopeful about when it comes to climate change, in addition a lot to be scared about.

The majority of pollution is caused by 3rd world/ eastern countries.

Do you want to go to war with China to enforce an environmentalist agenda?