Every single time you point out that a country of 1412 million people uses vastly more power than a country with 28 million people, someone points out that they obviously aren’t comparable without allowing for the massive difference in the population?
All else being equal, emissions should be proportional to population because consumption is proportional to population and emissions are proportional to consumption. Per capita shows where there is room for improvement, because the population is more wasteful/overconsuming and causing more than their fair share of emissions.
PS: An analogy: If a single person ‘A’ eats 5 sausages at a BBQ, and a family ‘B’ of five people eat 10 sausages between them, it’s technically true that A ate less sausages than B. It’s technically true that the family B has caused the sausages to run out faster than the single person A. But it is also true that the family only got 2 sausages per capita while the first one had 5 per capita - more than their fair share - and it’s both easier and fairer for A to reduce their consumption than B.
Every single time you point out that a country of 1412 million people uses vastly more power than a country with 28 million people, someone points out that they obviously aren’t comparable without allowing for the massive difference in the population?
If a single person ‘A’ eats 5 sausages at a BBQ, and a family ‘B’ of five people eat 10 sausages between them, it’s technically true that A ate less sausages than B. It’s technically true that the family B has caused the sausages to run out faster than the single person A.
But it is also true that the family only got 2 sausages per capita while the first one had 5 per capita - more than their fair share - and it’s both easier and fairer for A to reduce their consumption than B.
PLANET DOESN’T CARE ABOUT PER CAPITA
The point isn’t that the anthropomorphized “planet doesn’t care”, the point is that some people are emitting more and therefore have more room to cut back. Again, per capita shows where there is room for improvement, because the population is causing more than their fair share of emissions.
Family of 5 B ate more sausages than Family of 1 A. Who is best placed to reduce their sausage consumption?
Fossil CO2 emissions in India were 3,153,829,130 tons in 2024.
India Population: 1,476,625,576
Fossil CO2 emissions in China were 13,124,727,993 tons in 2024.
China Population: 1,412,914,089
Your analogy sucks on 10 different levels btw, I know how per capita works but you don’t seem to understand why China shits out 33% of all emissions in the world with no sizable reduction in years
It’s a very clumsy analogy, but it does have a fair point. CO2 is a proxy for standard of living, and some countries have a lot more room to cut fat than others.
While China emits almost 3x as much net CO2 as the USA, getting China to the global average emissions of 4.7 tons/person would only have ~1.5x the effect of getting everyone in the US to that level, while affecting over four times as many people.
As a hyperbolic example, getting everyone in the US to be vegetarian half-time with no other lifestyle changes would have roughly the same carbon savings as making the combined populations of Nigeria and Kenya (roughly equal to US population) completely carbon neutral, while also being way more economically feasible.
Not who you’ve been arguing with, I’m someone else.
And yes, a bunch of governments made bad decisions and almost everyone needs to change. But pretending like everyone needs to change equally, or only China needs to do better, are both dumb takes. Yeah China needs to do better, but policy and lifestyle-wise not as much better as the US or Australia, or hell yeah Qatar. If all of Qatar’s scant 3 million people went carbon neutral, it would be equivalent to a full 10% of the entire continent of Africa doing so. That’s one country’s policy and culture causing as much damage as the collective efforts of the smallest African 31 countries combined, most of which are larger than Qatar.
China may be the biggest emiter on net, but per capital it’s not particularly egregious, which means, and stick with me here because it’s the important part you aren’t getting, there don’t need to be as extreme policy and lifestyle changes in China to lower total emissions as a country like Qatar, which basically has to restructure everything from the ground up.
i give up, you genuinely think qatar going carbon neutral makes a difference as china installs 59 new coal power plants and emits another 6 trillion tons of co2
Ok, you’re maybe 40% of the way to understanding the issue now. First lets look at the two examples you gave.
India has a very high population with lot of inefficient, unregulated high emission light industry, some barely regulated heavy industry, and lots of low-emissions transport such as bikes, buses and trains. This all adds up to having moderate emissions despite their high population. There’s not much room to improve things unless they start cracking down on the light industrial emissions which is difficult(from both policing/regulating and a social/poverty angles).
China as you have pointed out has both very high population and very high emissions. has lots of industrial output hence their high emissions, but they also have extensive low-emissions transport networks with many commuters using pedal bikes, ebikes or PT. They have a bit more room for improvement - they could certainly restrict emissions from industry much better. They could put more effort into switching to more sustainable power generation. There isn’t much they could do about transport though.
Now lets look at three other countries that have come up in this conversation.
Australia has a small population but moderate emissions. While there is a growing percentage of renewable energy, most transport is still via high-pollution petrol and diesel vehicles, causing a lot of emissions. Australia has made some progress but can make a lot of changes to improve in both transport and power generation.
The USA has a high population and also very high emissions. They have high pollution transport, with many oversized and inefficient fossil fuel vehicles. They have high emissions from industry and power generation. The USA has lots of room to make simple changes that would reduce their emissions.
Qatar has a very low population, but ridiculously high emissions for such a small group of people. They burn huge amounts of energy in inefficient transport, because fossil fuels are extremely cheap there and emissions are not regulated. They generate nearly all their energy from high-emissions gas plants, only 0.27% renewable energy despite being ideally located geographically for both solar and wind power. Qatar has lots of room to make basic changes that would lower their emissions drastically.
Now - this is the key part you are struggling to understand - what trend can you observe across all 5 of the countries above, from India to Qatar?
In all these cases, the ratio of emission to population - the emissions per capita - relate directly to how easy it is for each country to make changes that will reduce their emissions. India and China have high net emissions, but its not easy to reduce them when you have a massive population that needs to be warmed, cooled, transported, fed, etc. Australia, the US and especially Qatar could make simple, rapid changes that would drastically cut emissions.
As another person here put it, emissions per capita = how extreme policy and lifestyle changes they have to make to change.
Every single time I post a chart showing actual emissions someone comes along as says look at per capita
I need to put a disclaimer down the bottom: the earth does not give a fuck about per capita! shut up about per capita!
https://youtu.be/Z-1jU7j6OWw?t=14
Every single time you point out that a country of 1412 million people uses vastly more power than a country with 28 million people, someone points out that they obviously aren’t comparable without allowing for the massive difference in the population?
All else being equal, emissions should be proportional to population because consumption is proportional to population and emissions are proportional to consumption. Per capita shows where there is room for improvement, because the population is more wasteful/overconsuming and causing more than their fair share of emissions.
PS: An analogy: If a single person ‘A’ eats 5 sausages at a BBQ, and a family ‘B’ of five people eat 10 sausages between them, it’s technically true that A ate less sausages than B. It’s technically true that the family B has caused the sausages to run out faster than the single person A. But it is also true that the family only got 2 sausages per capita while the first one had 5 per capita - more than their fair share - and it’s both easier and fairer for A to reduce their consumption than B.
YES
PLANET DOESN’T CARE ABOUT PER CAPITA
The point isn’t that the anthropomorphized “planet doesn’t care”, the point is that some people are emitting more and therefore have more room to cut back. Again, per capita shows where there is room for improvement, because the population is causing more than their fair share of emissions.
Family of 5 B ate more sausages than Family of 1 A. Who is best placed to reduce their sausage consumption?
Fossil CO2 emissions in India were 3,153,829,130 tons in 2024.
India Population: 1,476,625,576
Fossil CO2 emissions in China were 13,124,727,993 tons in 2024.
China Population: 1,412,914,089
Your analogy sucks on 10 different levels btw, I know how per capita works but you don’t seem to understand why China shits out 33% of all emissions in the world with no sizable reduction in years
It’s a very clumsy analogy, but it does have a fair point. CO2 is a proxy for standard of living, and some countries have a lot more room to cut fat than others.
While China emits almost 3x as much net CO2 as the USA, getting China to the global average emissions of 4.7 tons/person would only have ~1.5x the effect of getting everyone in the US to that level, while affecting over four times as many people.
As a hyperbolic example, getting everyone in the US to be vegetarian half-time with no other lifestyle changes would have roughly the same carbon savings as making the combined populations of Nigeria and Kenya (roughly equal to US population) completely carbon neutral, while also being way more economically feasible.
Worth looking up why China is building coal power plants like there’s no tomorrow (literally)
But you know who really needs to get their shit together? Qatar! Currently highest co2 emitter per capita:
It’s pretty clear who the real eco terrorist in this picture is! Unreal Qatar, you’re going to kill us all!
Not who you’ve been arguing with, I’m someone else.
And yes, a bunch of governments made bad decisions and almost everyone needs to change. But pretending like everyone needs to change equally, or only China needs to do better, are both dumb takes. Yeah China needs to do better, but policy and lifestyle-wise not as much better as the US or Australia, or hell yeah Qatar. If all of Qatar’s scant 3 million people went carbon neutral, it would be equivalent to a full 10% of the entire continent of Africa doing so. That’s one country’s policy and culture causing as much damage as the collective efforts of the smallest African 31 countries combined, most of which are larger than Qatar.
China may be the biggest emiter on net, but per capital it’s not particularly egregious, which means, and stick with me here because it’s the important part you aren’t getting, there don’t need to be as extreme policy and lifestyle changes in China to lower total emissions as a country like Qatar, which basically has to restructure everything from the ground up.
i give up, you genuinely think qatar going carbon neutral makes a difference as china installs 59 new coal power plants and emits another 6 trillion tons of co2
Ok, you’re maybe 40% of the way to understanding the issue now. First lets look at the two examples you gave.
India has a very high population with lot of inefficient, unregulated high emission light industry, some barely regulated heavy industry, and lots of low-emissions transport such as bikes, buses and trains. This all adds up to having moderate emissions despite their high population. There’s not much room to improve things unless they start cracking down on the light industrial emissions which is difficult(from both policing/regulating and a social/poverty angles).
China as you have pointed out has both very high population and very high emissions. has lots of industrial output hence their high emissions, but they also have extensive low-emissions transport networks with many commuters using pedal bikes, ebikes or PT. They have a bit more room for improvement - they could certainly restrict emissions from industry much better. They could put more effort into switching to more sustainable power generation. There isn’t much they could do about transport though.
Now lets look at three other countries that have come up in this conversation.
Australia has a small population but moderate emissions. While there is a growing percentage of renewable energy, most transport is still via high-pollution petrol and diesel vehicles, causing a lot of emissions. Australia has made some progress but can make a lot of changes to improve in both transport and power generation.
The USA has a high population and also very high emissions. They have high pollution transport, with many oversized and inefficient fossil fuel vehicles. They have high emissions from industry and power generation. The USA has lots of room to make simple changes that would reduce their emissions.
Qatar has a very low population, but ridiculously high emissions for such a small group of people. They burn huge amounts of energy in inefficient transport, because fossil fuels are extremely cheap there and emissions are not regulated. They generate nearly all their energy from high-emissions gas plants, only 0.27% renewable energy despite being ideally located geographically for both solar and wind power. Qatar has lots of room to make basic changes that would lower their emissions drastically.
Now - this is the key part you are struggling to understand - what trend can you observe across all 5 of the countries above, from India to Qatar?
In all these cases, the ratio of emission to population - the emissions per capita - relate directly to how easy it is for each country to make changes that will reduce their emissions. India and China have high net emissions, but its not easy to reduce them when you have a massive population that needs to be warmed, cooled, transported, fed, etc. Australia, the US and especially Qatar could make simple, rapid changes that would drastically cut emissions.
As another person here put it, emissions per capita = how extreme policy and lifestyle changes they have to make to change.