Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

The vast majority of the world is not accustomed to a car-forward culture like the slowly decreasing majority of the U.S. is.


No, but it's primarily the US and other rich western countries that need to change. Those countries where few people drive a car to this day aren't the problem.


The top 5 CO2 emitters (2017)

% of world emissions, emissions per capita [t/person/annum]:

  China          29.34%    7.7
  United States  13.77%   15.7
  European Union  9.57%    7.0
  India           6.62%    1.8
  Russia          4.76%   12.3
  Japan           3.56%   10.4
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...


This is misleading because it does not represent outsourced production nor accumulated emissions, which is related to building up wealth to a point where greener solutions can be afforded.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-co2-emissions-...

The US is supposed to do more given the damage it has done, but has been and still is dragging its feet. Same applies to the EU.


That graph depicts cumulative (historical) emissions, which is interesting, but not pertinent to the question of how to fix up things for the future.

It is not "only" the West that is a problem here. The biggest current polluter is China. If you look at per capita data, you have among the biggest polluters the US, definitely, but also Russia, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Canada. That's not "the West". Per capita, China emits more than the EU.

Sure, "the West" needs to clean up its act (the US in particular), but this is without doubt a global problem.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co-emissions-by-re...


The parent also ranks the countries by % of world emissions rather than by emissions per capita, which tells a very different story.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: