It's incredibly depressing that rich countries (mostly NA, EU, Japan) account for 92% of all CO2 emissions to date, but only suffer 1% of deaths, and about 15% of material damages caused by climate change.
Source: 'Less Is More' by Jason Hickel
this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2026
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That must be based on very old data, for a better overview on historic CO2 emissions see: https://www.wri.org/insights/history-carbon-dioxide-emissions
And also, historic CO2 emissions are not a very helpful blame game when the reduction of current CO2 emissions is urgently necessary (and often they are only used to justify continued high emissions).
(Sorry this got so long, I got nerd-sniped once again, and I'm not even really disagreeing with you, I think.)
How are historically high CO2 emissions used to justify continued high emissions? I could imagine the only argument here that could be made would be by countries that have not yet emitted as much as other countries, and in some way one might even be inclined to say that they are right. Even if it's the wrong approach.
Also what you posted are yearly CO2 emissions, what @DupaCycki@lemmy.world was talking about is cumulative emissions. Granted, even there it's not nearly as clear cut as 92% for rich countries, but still considerable.
According to ourworldindata USA and EU (I think that does not include the UK any more) are still in the lead, but you are right, if the trend continues that's just a matter of time. However even then, when it comes down to population, USA + EU are way less people than China, and when summing USAs and EUs emissions , it will take way longer for china to "catch up"... I'm not even sure where I'm going with this, just trying to give some perspective.
However overall I still have to agree with you - eventually comparing CO2 emissions of countries with each other does not make too much sense. Not because those countries aren't at fault, rather because manufacturing and consumption is not tied to countries any more. Even within countries CO2 emissions vary a lot by purchase power.
semi-relevant rambling - you made me curious and I looked at the emissions according to income, I don't doubt that you refute them, but since I looked it up anyways I might as well leave the links here
It still stands though, that "industrialized" countries are more responsible for the whole mess. ourworldindata has a nice visualization of that. High-income countries are roughly 62%, "upper-middle-income" 28%, which leaves 6% for the lower-middle-income countries and a whooping ~1% for the low-income countries (There are some big rounding errors in there). Assuming the population distribution is somewhat similar to the one according to the world bank(also ourworldindata), the only conclusion here is that high-income countries are a lot more responsible for this whole mess. I doubt anyone actually disagrees with that.
The article I linked is also about cummulative emmissions.
And sure there are many ways to look at it, but historical cummulative emmissions is consitently used as a talking point by some of the current highest emmitters to justify inaction.
Oh yeah, I missed the one about global historical cumulative emissions, sorry. In my defense, it was the second to last graph on a not very well-arranged page.
And you are right, the numbers can always be turned one way or the other, and in the end what counts is reducing emissions, but I'd say @DupaCycki@lemmy.worlds point stands - the countries that caused the most CO2 emissions have less to worry about in terms of damage due to climate change. Yet.
I think that is a bit of an artifact of them being simply richer and having better infrastructure. Similar to Japan having very few deaths due to earthquakes despite being hit by very strong ones regularly. And of course the world market allowing rich countries to offset food shortages and such much more easily.
Ah, now we finally have a point where I disagree :) However I'm not sure if this is the right place to discuss this further, but I'll go one level deeper ^^
Yes, having more money and better infrastructure makes it easier to survive natural catastrophes, but I'd argue there is a strong relation between "simply being richer and having better infrastructure" and "emitting more CO2". A lot of economic growth came from access to cheap energy, for which those countries went out of their ways to make sure they get it.
Sure, I am not disagreeing with that, but when purely looking at the climate change that is happening around the world, the northern latitudes are actually experiencing more change, and it would be foolish for the rich countries to think the impacts are something that only affects poor nations in the global south. The rich countries simply have more coping capacity left right now, but when that is exhausted they will be likely more impacted and with a population much less prepared for it.
Agreed, I have nothing to add here. Thanks for the discussion!
Back in my day you could just enjoy the terrifying land slides in the moment and didn't need to record it on your phone for social validation.
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Me looking at my phone: Damn, I'd sure hate to be the guy this meme is talking about!
If only EVERY post about climate change was entitled "Climate change" with no subtitle or summary!
THEN we'd ALWAYS know what to click and we'd NEVER waste out time!
I agree. Look at how many natural disasters have happened recently and what are people doing? Nothing. What are politicians or people who hold power are doing? They are Building more data centre and accelerating more industries that will lead to a faster destruction of this planet.
And natural disasters still isn't the worst part of climate change already happening
The Iran War is going to decrease fossil fuel consumption globally for the first time since COVID.
Shame we're locked into ten more years of escalation. But we've actually turned a corner, believe it or not.
Might have been an understandable (albeit crass) geopolitical play if the West was leading in renewables but instead it has pushed low and middle income countries further into China's sphere of influence and also into purchasing more Russian oil.
History will see this as an accelerant in the process of global power shifting from West to East. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, the West has been resting on its laurel's for a bit too long now, so this was likely an inevitable transition.
it has pushed low and middle income countries further into China’s sphere of influence and also into purchasing more Russian oil.
Idk about Russia, given how much of their infrastructure is being demolished.
But China has competitors in the green energy industry globally. The US just isn't one of them.
Hegemonic Shift
I work at a factory that makes components for electric vehicles, and also sells some stuff to defense contractors on the side. Two years ago, the Trump Administration completely fucked over my company by threatening previously-guaranteed CHIPS money and magically deleting Inflation Reduction Act measures intended to encourage adoption of EVs. Our demand dropped like a rock, we laid off 80% of our workforce, raises got frozen, equity turned to dust, etc. Then the US did Israel's bidding and started this asinine war with Iran. For a month there was nothing. Then the defense orders came trickling in. Then we couldn't keep those tools running fast enough. Finally, two months later, the EV stuff showed up like a flash flood in the Grand Canyon. Insane we were almost bankrupted by his stupidity, then saved by it. For my part, I'm going to try to upgrade my gas furnace to a heat pump before it gets cold.
Christ I wish housing wasn't so fucked in the UK. The odds of my landlord replacing the ancient gas boiler with a heat pump is nil, not when we're still fitting millions of new gas boilers, even to the few new builds that make it through planning ffs. Even if I owned my house a heat pump might not be feasible for various reasons, many of them down to our housing stock just being totally naff in various ways.
Don't get me wrong the Russians love to exaggerate our problems, but the best thing we can do to fuck the Kremlin over is getting the natural gas needle out of our collective arms which we're just not that interested in doing. Sure the grid is decarbonising but the majority of heating is still natural gas, and the grid can't be upgraded to fix this due to our genuine economic self-harm of discretionary planning where bored retirees and self-interested QUANGOs can delay everything to the point of non-viability.
Are photovoltaics an option for you? I can buy a pallet of 32 of them for about $5k and from what I understand, this is despite hefty tariffs. They're approaching impulse buy territory. That said, I'm capable of installing them myself, which is a big part of the cost for most installations.
Probably not, I'm renting and I doubt I can convince the landlord!
Why is the solution always killing brown people?
it's the solution for white people. china has been steaming along at a breakneck pace towards renewable energy for years now. if it wasn't for their production capacity for photovoltaic cells and batteries, there wouldn't be a solar revolution right now.
of course, they also released a ton of oil when the Iran war started picking up, so that wasn't great, but it also maybe saved our asses as well.
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China pivoting is doing the most I think
Because white people feel entitled to take their shit.
Yeah, all the current events making diesel more expensive suck, and will hurt everyone's budget regardless if they drive. But we all know we need to use less diesel, right? We've just found the worst possible way to reduce the world's reliance on diesel.
That's Market Forces for you.
Making everyone feel the pain all at once in the worst way possible
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Cyclone Chido hit us in december 2024, it felt a bit like the end of days. I think it was comparable to what people near or in the gulf of Mexico experience every few years. Then I saw what hit Nepal not even a month ago (GLOF or glacial lake outburst flood), then the floods in China. These are terrifying. They can't happen where I live but there are other perils : running out of drinking water, more cyclones. We're entering rainy season now.
The "revolution" will not be televized, but it will be in portrait format and wobbly AF, in 30sec snippets. 🥲🤷🏼♂️
The revolution will have frequent ad breaks
This seems like an interesting videogame concept
Nah, I'm gonna move to the other side of the line when it gets close. Climate disasters only happen once in an area ever.
Laughs in Moore, Oklahoma
It is already here, I took pictures of cracked earth and dry riverbeds this summer and I live in fucking Middle Europe.
There was drought in Wales. I know non-UK people might not appreciate how wild this is, so I'll add that Wales is popularly considered the place where they make the rain. Not this year though!
My area is supposed to be humid as well but it has been arid for years now but never as bad as it was this year
Frankly, I'd prefer this over the more likely scenario: Not all locations are equally susceptible to climate change related disasters. The people who made their wealth wrecking the earth are going to fill those places, and leave the rest of us to survive as best we can in the hurricanes, mudslides, and heatwaves.
North America and Russia are supposed to see a wild increase to arable land while the global south gets fucked, as usual.
Might be part of why they’re going so hard in the “get em all out and keep em out” schtick
At that point, such a high percentage of people will be seeking wildfire/flood/hurricane/etc. relief that your footage won't even make the first 10 pages of GoFundMe
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Social media weirdos being jelous of all the attention tgese dying people get.
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