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Windchasertoday at 9:32 PM1 replyview on HN

> The biggest lie we're being told in the west is that we have a hand in climate change.

If you look at total historic emissions to date, the US is responsible for 25% of all of them, and the EU is close behind at 22%. China is at 13%. And if you look at historic emissions per person, then each American has produced ~8x as much as the average Chinese person.

https://ourworldindata.org/contributed-most-global-co2

Yes, the west has played the dominant role in GHG emissions. I don't blame China for now, quite recently, increasing their GHG emissions as they try to get to standards of living we've had for many decades. As we led the way into the industrial revolution and high GHG emissions, we should also lead the way back out. And yet US emissions per capita are still about 50% higher than Chinese!


Replies

contingenciestoday at 9:35 PM

Also, to be more holistic in evaluating things through this icky nationalist lens, China has been a globally significant contributor to alternate fuels including solar and micro-hydro, plus the transition to EVs notably including EV buses (now becoming globally popular) and high speed rail.