The climate doesn’t care about what is fair, but people do and this needs to be considered if we want to succeed.

Most individuals in China consume way less than most individuals in the US and emit less carbon. That they live under the same totalitarian govt is unlikely to make them sympathetic to the view that their personal sacrifice should be higher as we fight a global challenge.

>> is unlikely to make them sympathetic to the view that their personal sacrifice should be higher as we fight a global challenge.

I doubt they are willingly making sacrifices. They are just forced to do that...the poor people consume less because they cannot grab more.

The problem is that everyone plays this game.

The voters blame the politicians. The politicians blame the voters for voting wrong. The communists blame capitalism. Capitalism blames capitalism. The consumers blame the producers for producing the wrong thing. The producers blame the consumers for wanting the wrong thing. The east blames the west. The west blames the east. Cats blame dogs. Dogs blame cats.

In a sense yeah. They are all right, they are all right because we are all to blame. Each and every one of us bear this guilt. We all could have done differently. And if we keep sitting in a circle pointing fingers at each other, if we don't all own up to this responsibility, who is to blame won't matter, because there will hardly be anyone left to point fingers in a few hundred years.

We either fix this together or we all lose alone (although comforted by the thought that surely someone else was more at fault).

Historical emissions are still in the atmosphere, continually heating it up.

And per-capita emissions today are still vastly higher in North America and (most of) Western Europe than the rest of the world.

Sure, but history is immutable. The only thing we can change is future emissions.

History can determine who should have the highest remaining allowance.

What you will find is that everyone will have a reason why they aren't as bad as the other group, and forge on as though it's someone else's problem. There is always someone else who is more to blame, more at fault.

That sounds like a cop out. The historical data is accurate. And there is a historical basis for reparations being a thing that works. Similar things have been done successfully before. The best way to get countries to drop out and not participate is for countries to feel like it's not a fair deal. Make it a fair deal and you attract everyone to the table.

That's how it works though. What you end up with is different groups looking at different data to support whatever narrative is convenient for them. Then they call the other people idiots who can't see what is blatantly obvious.

That's not how it works and that's not what you end up with. See how easy that is? I'm stopping here because this discussion has far more noise than signal.

> That's not how it works and that's not what you end up with.

I'll invite you to consider the difficulty in getting people to agree in a question so trivial as to whether to wear masks i public in 2020.