In this study, responsible means owning the industries that cause global warming.
But it doesn't actually say much about warming, it is just a proxy for wealth inequality.
According to [1], "In the first quarter of 2024, almost two-thirds percent of the total wealth in the United States was owned by the top 10 percent of earners". Unsurprisingly, it is the same distribution: it just means those who own 2/3 of the world also own 2/3 of emissions, it means the top 10% make the same type of investment as the bottom 90% when it comes to warming.
By that logic, it is probably also the case that the richest 10% are responsible for 2/3 of what goes into fighting climate change.
> The top 1 percent alone are responsible for one-fifth of warming, not just by using more energy, authors say, but by investing in sectors, like fossil fuels, that are driving up emissions.
Investing in fossil fuels makes you responsible for the people who use those services?
If the top 1% dictate what you should do, that is evil, but if they don't, that's also evil?
happytoexplain · 14h ago
"Anything market-rational is also moral" is the plainest fallacy in all the world, and yet one of the most common and devastating. Clearly if you invest in something popular, you are assisting in its ability to be popular. That those consuming the thing are also at fault has no impact on that fact. That the next guy would do the same if you hadn't has no impact on that fact. You may very reasonably argue degrees, but anything else is nonsense to the point of being essentially a lie.
HPsquared · 14h ago
I don't think that is ever really the argument made by that kind of economics.
Even the most extreme free marketeers like Walter Block (author of "Defending the Undefendable") talk about pollution as a violation of private property. Climate change as a result of pollution definitely would come under that kind of argument. They would just say it's a matter for the courts, like everyone affected should sue the people who emit the pollution or something like that (yes it's not a very practical ideology when you get into things like that)
arp242 · 13h ago
But businesses aren't run that way, so whatever some abstract theorist like Walter Block may say is not really relevant for the day-to-day reality of things.
And I've seen "anything market-rational is also moral"-shaped argument many times: on HN, in newspapers, company responses to criticism, pretty much any time someone defends crypto's negative effects.
HPsquared · 13h ago
Yeah there are a lot of silly arguments that get made online.
arp242 · 13h ago
It's not just "silly arguments that get made online". It's de-facto the way the world is run, and the way many companies defend their actions.
poincaredisk · 14h ago
Is it? If I buy EvilCorp stock from you for $1000000 how does that help EvilCorp? Assuming just a few rational actors, stock price should (in theory) stay roughly the same, near the "real" market value. Of course, if everyone did that, and EvilCorps couldn't even IPO, then it would matter, but that's a big if. But if that's the goal, we should strive to ban EvilCorps instead.
Version467 · 14h ago
EvilCorp probably has unissued shares. A rising market cap thus gives them a lot of leverage to achieve their goals. They could pay employees, borrow against those shares, raise more capital with a secondary offering, etc.
Also, if EvilCorp is worth $10, I could just buy it and stop all the EvilActions.
zahlman · 13h ago
>"Anything market-rational is also moral" is the plainest fallacy in all the world
I disagree that GP's argument depends on this.
I disagree that the principle you attempt to refute is even fairly characterized that way. You seem instead to argue against the idea that acting rationally in the market is amoral: i.e., not concerned with morality, and not requiring moral consideration.
But worse, it comes across that you imagine that moral viewpoints not agreeing with your own are inherently fallacious, or perhaps even that morality is an inherently objective matter that you have all figured out. That seems much more dangerous to me.
It's entirely possible for reasonable people to disagree with you. I personally feel that holding people culpable for the actions of others is a great injustice.
That said, it doesn't seem like you've actually explained anything:
> Clearly if you invest in something popular, you are assisting in its ability to be popular.
(e: Also, what poincaredisk said. This isn't necessarily the case at all.)
But suppose it did?
How does that make you responsible for the actions of others?
> That those consuming the thing are also at fault has no impact on that fact.
By saying "also" you beg the question. Why is the investor at fault?
Why does making it possible for others to do something cause moral culpability for those others actually choosing to do so?
Suppose I manufacture fertilizer. In this case, is it my, personal, moral responsibility to determine whether my clients are terrorists seeking to refine explosive materials? Why? In principle, how should I go about that?
Is the planet itself morally responsible for consumers using fossil fuels, simply because it provides those fuels? How about, say, the inventor of the coal-burning electricity plant?
Or does this only apply to investment for some reason?
> That the next guy would do the same if you hadn't has no impact on that fact.
It doesn't change what you did, sure. But you don't explain why this means you should be morally culpable for anything.
> but anything else is nonsense to the point of being essentially a lie.
You continue to argue by assertion and do nothing to actually explain your moral principles.
Incidentally: do you suppose that investors who enable virtuous actions are similarly virtuous, even though they neither perform the action nor cause it? Or does your premise only apply to the immoral?
lolinder · 14h ago
TFA does a poor job explaining what this means, but I found the original data and included it here [0]. The short version is that investment emissions are defined as the emissions spent in building up capital: machines and similar. The emissions caused by the direct manufacture of consumer goods are attributed to the consumers, not the investors.
This makes intuitive sense: the machines are owned by the investors, not the consumers.
There was a video of Zuck on reddit, lecturing about how nations should work together on climate change. While his mega yachts burn 2000 gallons of fuel per hour. The level of hypocrisy of these people is off the charts.
The problem is that fossile fuel companies (and other polluting industries) don't just answer an existing demand but also influence on that demand: they lobby against environmental regulation, run influence campaigns against climate science, use greenwashing, etc. Those companies and their shareholders can't be taken out of the equation as they're not neutral.
kimbernator · 14h ago
Fossil fuel companies actively lobby against renewables and environmental regulation because it's in their financial best interest. By investing in those companies, one aligns their personal financial interests with the industry.
I don't think blanket divestment is a good solution, but there is clearly a perverse incentive. You don't get to profit significantly from these companies while being absolved of blame.
diggan · 14h ago
> Investing in fossil fuels makes you responsible for the people who use those services?
Maybe not responsible, but not exactly a great move if you cared more about our world than your own financials.
Said another way, if the top 10% stopped investing in companies continuing with fossil fuels, and instead tried to aim to invest into renewables, couldn't that potentially A) make companies dealing with renewables more attractive as investments increase and B) make companies dealing with fossil fuels less attractive or potentially make them change towards something else?
Basically "Vote with your wallet" but for the ultra-rich, and "Vote" is really "Make Earth still be habitable in the future".
fastball · 14h ago
You have this backwards. People invest in these companies because they are growing. They are growing because consumers (you and me) are, year over year, consuming more and more fossil fuels and their byproducts.
Investment doesn't drive our behavior, our behavior is what is driving investment.
WorldMaker · 14h ago
Investment shifts Supply through capital expenditures. Less investment can mean lower supply. Lower supply can mean higher prices. Higher prices can cause lower demand. Investment definitely has a relationship with demand, that's one of the core parts of the law of supply and demand. The businesses don't "have to" grow just because there seems to be a high demand. The businesses not growing can be a useful way to drop that demand. It's still a choice to prefer short-term investment revenue gains from a business that is long-term destructive to the planet and everyone else's well being. That revenue isn't value neutral, the source still matters.
amanaplanacanal · 14h ago
That leaves out the political side. Big companies have way more influence on governance than you and I do, and will lobby to make the law favor their business rather than outcomes that would protect the environment.
fastball · 3h ago
If companies have too much influence, that can be changed.
In the mean time, investors in oil companies are not "responsible" for warming – our consumption is.
127 · 14h ago
Investing is giving money, thus life to a company, with the expectation that you will get more back in time. If fossil fuel companies and ancillaries would have to pay higher interest rates, there would be less fossil fuel companies.
Yes, investing doesn't come with free pass. You are very much involved and supporting the company. Thus morally tied to what the company does.
Whether you care about that at all, is up to you. You just don't get to eat your cake and have it too.
6P58r3MXJSLi · 14h ago
> If the top 1% dictate what you should do, that is evil, but if they don't, that's also evil?
the top 1% emits to amass more capital for themselves, not to produce what's needed by consumers, who are thereby responsible for their share of emissions and that share is already accounted for in the data.
HPsquared · 14h ago
It's hard to point the finger when multiple parties have contributed to something.
delusional · 14h ago
The wealthy in America already argue that their investments are required to drive change. They constantly argue that the commons have to incetivise them to build more whatevers, and that they specifically create jobs.
It seems reasonable to then also attribute the negstive effects of their investments to them.
seniortaco · 14h ago
Right, like should we also blame the people who paid the money to these billionaires by using their services? Anyone who used facebook is responsible for funding 1/X global warming.
priced_in · 14h ago
That investment is converted by fossil fuel companies in running propaganda campaigns, sponsoring fallacious researches proving the benefits of clean coal and other nonsensical bs, lobbying authorities to build more roads (that induce more traffic, more pollution, more jams, etc.)
So yes, investors are partly responsible.
We are far from the simple supply-demand your comment suggests..
dfxm12 · 14h ago
Us plebs can only buy what's on sale. If the rich are propping up fossil fuels, yes, they are responsible for the rest of us using them. It's important to note that we're at a time where world's richest people are getting more and more involved in local and foreign governments, further increasing their responsibility on these matters.
mc32 · 14h ago
It’s a bad measure. Fossil fuels is what allowed us the progress we’ve experienced in the XX century and beyond. Without it, the majority of the world would be living near subsistence as well as still suffering from infectious diseases, etc. Not too far off from the guilded age but with some tweaks.
grimblee · 7h ago
I think having everyone use public transport instead of cars and banning programmed obscolescence and advertising would drastically reduce our footprint without impacting our (as in, the people, not shareholders) lives.
mc32 · 7h ago
I agree with you generally speaking while also acknowledging that there are lots of cases where public transit is not feasible (rural areas, larger items transport, time sensitive travel). Also some ads are useful, but I’d be down for not having ads meant to increase sales.
grimblee · 7h ago
How about governement putting fort incentive to promote carsharing ?
Also, rural area could be bettre connected if all that money didn't go into individual cars
6P58r3MXJSLi · 14h ago
> the majority of the world would be living
differently
we don't know how, we sure can't say it would be worse, it probably wouldn't.
modern medicine is not energy intensive likewise aren't better hygiene and better food. Actually vaccines, that fight infectious diseases, have been discovered when we used little or no fossil fuel and the light was kept on by candles or oil, including whale oil.
dinga · 14h ago
Yes!
fastball · 14h ago
Yep this "study" is drivel.
To provide a scenario that takes this argument to its logical conclusion: if one person owned 100% of the only oil & gas company in the world, and all 8 billion people on earth used that oil & gas for their cars and their stoves, etc. and this in turn constituted the entirety of emissions that caused warming, then by this metric it would actually be that one businessperson who is "responsible" for all warming.
Even if that person doesn't consume any oil & gas themselves and lives off-grid on a farm somewhere.
nativeit · 14h ago
Just in case people are imagining the uber-wealthy, this is definitionally the world’s wealthiest 800,000,000 people, so probably a lot of “normal” kinds of middle class folks in that cohort. It’s just that the wealthiest industrialized nations are all living very wasteful lifestyles.
DoingIsLearning · 13h ago
> It’s just that the wealthiest industrialized nations are all living very wasteful lifestyles.
ourworldindata.org Has a really good infograph on this:
What is interesting is the large disparity between several industrialized nations.
For example Kuwait, US, Canada, Australia are significantly different from Switzerland, France, Germany, Denmark. And all would technically be considered wealthy industrialized nations.
zahlman · 13h ago
Within Canada there is considerable variation. Check out provincial statistics on how electricity is generated in each province, and the resulting carbon intensity.
lolinder · 14h ago
Direct link to the paper [0]. They're drawing emissions data from an earlier paper [1]. Here's the key bit from that earlier paper describing the difference between investment emissions and consumption emissions:
> Consumption-related
emissions come from the carbon released by the direct use of energy (e.g. fuel in a car) or its indirect use (e.g. energy embedded in the production of goods and services
consumed by individuals). Investment-related emissions are emissions associated with choices made by capital owners about investments in the production process
(i.e. emissions involved in the construction of machines, factories, etc.).
I'm not an expert in any of this and can't judge how it actually did the math, but on the surface this seems like a reasonable way of attributing emissions.
If all the industries were, instead, spread out among all countries equally. How would that change anything towards global warming?
6P58r3MXJSLi · 13h ago
I'll give you an example.
Americans (US citizens) eat 114 kg (or 251 pounds) of meat yearly on average.
Chinese eat on average 42kg (or 93 pounds) of meat. It's almost 1/3 (actually it's 37%).
Americans are over eating, Chinese are slightly under eating.
Chinese are more or less eating the same amount of meat a domestic cat eats in the USA.
Which is kinda revealing of how much in the west we abuse of the system.
So if the meat consumption was spread among all countries equally, but most of all correctly, Americans would eat a lot less, while Chinese would eat just a bit more.
It's the same with emissions, some countries are over emitting, it's not about spreading them equally, it's about stopping the abusers.
assimpleaspossi · 11h ago
That would claim that those who over produced (or over ate) were abusers. If the Americans, in your example, over ate because they produced more of the world's needs, are they abusers? If China stopped industries that cause global warming, would those industries only be picked up by other countries because they are wanted or needed?
6P58r3MXJSLi · 9h ago
> If the Americans, in your example, over ate because they produced more of the world's needs, are they abusers?
We know they did it in the past for profit and to flood developing countries with their products so that they wouldn't develop their own economy, because their home made products would cost more, so yes, they are abusers.
But USA stopped manufacturing almost everything 30 years ago. On purpose.
Despite that, they are still one of the worst polluters per capita.
By Co2 emissions alone they produce per capita 300% of the global average.
By Co2 emissions alone.
For comparison EU stops at 117%, my country in EU at 100%, 1/3 of the USA per capita, 1/15th in total.
> If China stopped industries that cause global warming, would those industries only be picked up by other countries because they are wanted or needed?
It would immediately halt the world's economy and it would take at least 30 years to go back to a new normal. Some other country would pick those industries up, probably more than one country, each one of them with lesser output and smaller economy of scale, raising prices.
Short answer: because they are needed.
makapuf · 14h ago
Reminder: top 10% richest worldwide seem (from my 10s. google search [1]) to amount to around $100k net worth, so for many people there, it's not them, its' us. 1% is around $1M net worth.
This is extremely important. Most people have a very skewed perspective on what it means to be in the global 10% or 1%. I think this paper would be much more impactful if the authors listed the calculations used for defining these groups in the Methods section. Ideally the cutoff for each group should even be in the abstract so people can understand what 1% or 10% even means.
nashashmi · 14h ago
Top 10% basically includes people with incomes of 80k$. And these people are traveling a lot for vacation and stuff. And they are wasting foods. And they are buying stuff they don’t need. I know because I am one of them.
Probably the bright side of Trump’s trade war is that simple stuff will become expensive. And lose market share for resources and leave more share for more critical supplies. This should reduce overconsumption and bring down pollution.
But my wife keeps complaining that it is not her but elon and Taylor swift jet that is causing the problem so she remains care free
YaleE360 · 15h ago
The world's richest 10 percent are responsible for two-thirds of warming since 1990, a study finds.
jokoon · 14h ago
I wonder what fraction of people does it represent for US, europe, france, UK, germany etc
bix6 · 14h ago
Wealth has ruined so much in this world. I think often about how much better my community would be if all homes were owned by people who actually lived here. Half my town is airbnbs and vacation homes. It’s still paradise here but it could be so much better.
VladVladikoff · 14h ago
Where is this paradise you speak of? I am looking got a new place to live.
bix6 · 13h ago
I think it’s different for everyone but I love the ocean so I live by a beach in California
mrguyorama · 7h ago
Buddy, living next to a Californian beach IS wealth.
Like, unless you retired in 1975 and bought that place and have just never moved since, and even in that hyper-specific case, you STILL have immense wealth, just tied up in an asset.
It's very likely you are in the global 1%.
bix6 · 2h ago
Absolutely, it’s a privilege to live in this paradise.
But that doesn’t mean wealth hasn’t ruined things.
HDThoreaun · 7h ago
> Half my town is airbnbs and vacation homes.
This is because of NIMBYs. Vacationers will always be able to pay more than locals. The only solution is to satisfy the demand of both. You need install a government that allows people to build new homes.
bix6 · 2h ago
And that is a primary issue with wealth.
Unfortunately my local government is anti density.
scoofy · 11h ago
More feel good propaganda.
Let’s blaming Exxon shareholders for the consequences of most people deciding they shouldn’t be the one who rides an ebike to work.
That burger you had for lunch is really McDonald’s fault… for selling burgers instead of vegetables.
Just like in California, where the “new homes” we aren’t building are required to have electric ranges, but literally everyone else never had to change.
It’s all big corporations… nothing to do with housing policies or the fact that your property values could go down if we built more. Nope, just corporations.
johnea · 5h ago
One has to wonder: What percentage of that 10% graduated from yale...
andrewclunn · 14h ago
So if I own stock in a company that purchases materials that use a mining process that pollutes... I am therefore responsible for that pollution? I mean what about the people who buy my product then? I wonder what percentage of academics are responsible for tenuous studies meant to push a political agenda?
priced_in · 14h ago
You mean if I buy a stolen TV I actively participate in motivating the TVs to be stolen? If that's the case, they should make it illegal to buy stolen TV in the first place (hint: it is illegal)
ty6853 · 14h ago
I think the more common scenario is something like "I bought R410 refrigerant so my elderly parents would not die during the next heat spell, knowing that these A/C appliances typically end in a leak or release event, meaning some kid in India gets the downstream effect of greenhouse emissions instead of me."
zahlman · 13h ago
I don't think this is at all comparable, and I think GP is being unfairly dismissed.
ty6853 · 14h ago
Yes, but this is the kind of thing Kaczynski wrote about in his manifesto. If you don't produce the product using the externality heavy process that reduces the cost, someone else will, and put you out of business. The whole economic system demands it, it is unavoidable. USA mostly solves this by just offloading the problem onto China.
That is why some people argue for a more capitalist system where the referee of industry job is to make sure businesses pay for externalities, enabling free trade rather than just shitting on the next guy.
akudha · 14h ago
On one hand, it feels pointless for someone like me to be environmentally conscious - no matter how hard I try, I won't be able to pollute even one millionth of pollution that people like Zuck are going to cause. But I am living on this planet too, so it is my responsibility too, to be environmentally conscious (no matter how little practical effect it has).
In the end though, the only thing we can control (to some extent) is our own consumption...
amanaplanacanal · 14h ago
Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be much political support in pricing externalities into the cost of products, even though that would be the most efficient "free market" way to solve the problem.
ty6853 · 13h ago
I'm not sure you would even need political support. The courts would just have to uphold the property rights of the polluted, and your right to exercise derivatives on your property i.e. sell a a pollution easement on your property.
amanaplanacanal · 13h ago
I agree that it should be that way.
HDThoreaun · 7h ago
Neutralizing externalities is an essential part of the capitalist system. Markets with heavy externalities are not free markets.
delusional · 14h ago
Is that not true to some extent? I've always accepted that when I buy a pair of trousers that's a tacit support for child labor in Bangladesh, since I know it takes place.
I know this sounds extreme. For sure my part in it is way smaller than the CEO of H&M, but I do take part in the system.
zahlman · 13h ago
> For sure my part in it is way smaller than the CEO of H&M, but I do take part in the system.
I think it's completely the responsibility of the child's employer (or whatever other term you deem appropriate), and I've never understood why others feel differently.
delusional · 11h ago
Interesting. Is this only the case for responsibility, or do you feel the same for any sort of downstream effect?
As an example of the same more general question, do you believe in consumer demand driving production?
I would find it very odd if you believe in downstream effects but not downstream responsibility.
zahlman · 3h ago
I believe in agency. If I pollute the air, I cause a negative externality for others. But if I buy a product from someone who produces it unethically, I don't cause that unethical production. If the producer can't offer me the same good produced ethically at the same price, that isn't my fault.
TechDebtDevin · 14h ago
So because you're not the only one to blame you shouldn't be blamed at all??? lmfao
blueflow · 14h ago
My bet, without looking: The journalist made that up and its not in the paper itself.
bix6 · 14h ago
The paper says private consumption and investments
But it doesn't actually say much about warming, it is just a proxy for wealth inequality.
According to [1], "In the first quarter of 2024, almost two-thirds percent of the total wealth in the United States was owned by the top 10 percent of earners". Unsurprisingly, it is the same distribution: it just means those who own 2/3 of the world also own 2/3 of emissions, it means the top 10% make the same type of investment as the bottom 90% when it comes to warming.
By that logic, it is probably also the case that the richest 10% are responsible for 2/3 of what goes into fighting climate change.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/203961/wealth-distributi...
Investing in fossil fuels makes you responsible for the people who use those services?
If the top 1% dictate what you should do, that is evil, but if they don't, that's also evil?
Even the most extreme free marketeers like Walter Block (author of "Defending the Undefendable") talk about pollution as a violation of private property. Climate change as a result of pollution definitely would come under that kind of argument. They would just say it's a matter for the courts, like everyone affected should sue the people who emit the pollution or something like that (yes it's not a very practical ideology when you get into things like that)
And I've seen "anything market-rational is also moral"-shaped argument many times: on HN, in newspapers, company responses to criticism, pretty much any time someone defends crypto's negative effects.
Also, if EvilCorp is worth $10, I could just buy it and stop all the EvilActions.
I disagree that GP's argument depends on this.
I disagree that the principle you attempt to refute is even fairly characterized that way. You seem instead to argue against the idea that acting rationally in the market is amoral: i.e., not concerned with morality, and not requiring moral consideration.
But worse, it comes across that you imagine that moral viewpoints not agreeing with your own are inherently fallacious, or perhaps even that morality is an inherently objective matter that you have all figured out. That seems much more dangerous to me.
It's entirely possible for reasonable people to disagree with you. I personally feel that holding people culpable for the actions of others is a great injustice.
That said, it doesn't seem like you've actually explained anything:
> Clearly if you invest in something popular, you are assisting in its ability to be popular.
(e: Also, what poincaredisk said. This isn't necessarily the case at all.)
But suppose it did?
How does that make you responsible for the actions of others?
> That those consuming the thing are also at fault has no impact on that fact.
By saying "also" you beg the question. Why is the investor at fault?
Why does making it possible for others to do something cause moral culpability for those others actually choosing to do so?
Suppose I manufacture fertilizer. In this case, is it my, personal, moral responsibility to determine whether my clients are terrorists seeking to refine explosive materials? Why? In principle, how should I go about that?
Is the planet itself morally responsible for consumers using fossil fuels, simply because it provides those fuels? How about, say, the inventor of the coal-burning electricity plant?
Or does this only apply to investment for some reason?
> That the next guy would do the same if you hadn't has no impact on that fact.
It doesn't change what you did, sure. But you don't explain why this means you should be morally culpable for anything.
> but anything else is nonsense to the point of being essentially a lie.
You continue to argue by assertion and do nothing to actually explain your moral principles.
Incidentally: do you suppose that investors who enable virtuous actions are similarly virtuous, even though they neither perform the action nor cause it? Or does your premise only apply to the immoral?
This makes intuitive sense: the machines are owned by the investors, not the consumers.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43915596
No comments yet
https://www.reddit.com/r/climateskeptics/comments/1hk9nwc/ma...
https://voz.us/en/society/240508/9963/launchpad-mark-zuckerb...
No comments yet
I don't think blanket divestment is a good solution, but there is clearly a perverse incentive. You don't get to profit significantly from these companies while being absolved of blame.
Maybe not responsible, but not exactly a great move if you cared more about our world than your own financials.
Said another way, if the top 10% stopped investing in companies continuing with fossil fuels, and instead tried to aim to invest into renewables, couldn't that potentially A) make companies dealing with renewables more attractive as investments increase and B) make companies dealing with fossil fuels less attractive or potentially make them change towards something else?
Basically "Vote with your wallet" but for the ultra-rich, and "Vote" is really "Make Earth still be habitable in the future".
Investment doesn't drive our behavior, our behavior is what is driving investment.
In the mean time, investors in oil companies are not "responsible" for warming – our consumption is.
Yes, investing doesn't come with free pass. You are very much involved and supporting the company. Thus morally tied to what the company does.
Whether you care about that at all, is up to you. You just don't get to eat your cake and have it too.
the top 1% emits to amass more capital for themselves, not to produce what's needed by consumers, who are thereby responsible for their share of emissions and that share is already accounted for in the data.
It seems reasonable to then also attribute the negstive effects of their investments to them.
So yes, investors are partly responsible.
We are far from the simple supply-demand your comment suggests..
Also, rural area could be bettre connected if all that money didn't go into individual cars
differently
we don't know how, we sure can't say it would be worse, it probably wouldn't.
modern medicine is not energy intensive likewise aren't better hygiene and better food. Actually vaccines, that fight infectious diseases, have been discovered when we used little or no fossil fuel and the light was kept on by candles or oil, including whale oil.
To provide a scenario that takes this argument to its logical conclusion: if one person owned 100% of the only oil & gas company in the world, and all 8 billion people on earth used that oil & gas for their cars and their stoves, etc. and this in turn constituted the entirety of emissions that caused warming, then by this metric it would actually be that one businessperson who is "responsible" for all warming.
Even if that person doesn't consume any oil & gas themselves and lives off-grid on a farm somewhere.
ourworldindata.org Has a really good infograph on this:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita
What is interesting is the large disparity between several industrialized nations.
For example Kuwait, US, Canada, Australia are significantly different from Switzerland, France, Germany, Denmark. And all would technically be considered wealthy industrialized nations.
> Consumption-related emissions come from the carbon released by the direct use of energy (e.g. fuel in a car) or its indirect use (e.g. energy embedded in the production of goods and services consumed by individuals). Investment-related emissions are emissions associated with choices made by capital owners about investments in the production process (i.e. emissions involved in the construction of machines, factories, etc.).
I'm not an expert in any of this and can't judge how it actually did the math, but on the surface this seems like a reasonable way of attributing emissions.
[0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-025-02325-x
[1] https://lucaschancel.com/global-carbon-inequality-1990-2019/
Americans (US citizens) eat 114 kg (or 251 pounds) of meat yearly on average.
Chinese eat on average 42kg (or 93 pounds) of meat. It's almost 1/3 (actually it's 37%).
Americans are over eating, Chinese are slightly under eating.
Chinese are more or less eating the same amount of meat a domestic cat eats in the USA.
Which is kinda revealing of how much in the west we abuse of the system.
So if the meat consumption was spread among all countries equally, but most of all correctly, Americans would eat a lot less, while Chinese would eat just a bit more.
It's the same with emissions, some countries are over emitting, it's not about spreading them equally, it's about stopping the abusers.
We know they did it in the past for profit and to flood developing countries with their products so that they wouldn't develop their own economy, because their home made products would cost more, so yes, they are abusers.
But USA stopped manufacturing almost everything 30 years ago. On purpose. Despite that, they are still one of the worst polluters per capita.
By Co2 emissions alone they produce per capita 300% of the global average.
By Co2 emissions alone.
For comparison EU stops at 117%, my country in EU at 100%, 1/3 of the USA per capita, 1/15th in total.
> If China stopped industries that cause global warming, would those industries only be picked up by other countries because they are wanted or needed?
It would immediately halt the world's economy and it would take at least 30 years to go back to a new normal. Some other country would pick those industries up, probably more than one country, each one of them with lesser output and smaller economy of scale, raising prices.
Short answer: because they are needed.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/01/how-much-money-you-need-to-b...
Probably the bright side of Trump’s trade war is that simple stuff will become expensive. And lose market share for resources and leave more share for more critical supplies. This should reduce overconsumption and bring down pollution.
But my wife keeps complaining that it is not her but elon and Taylor swift jet that is causing the problem so she remains care free
Like, unless you retired in 1975 and bought that place and have just never moved since, and even in that hyper-specific case, you STILL have immense wealth, just tied up in an asset.
It's very likely you are in the global 1%.
But that doesn’t mean wealth hasn’t ruined things.
This is because of NIMBYs. Vacationers will always be able to pay more than locals. The only solution is to satisfy the demand of both. You need install a government that allows people to build new homes.
Unfortunately my local government is anti density.
Let’s blaming Exxon shareholders for the consequences of most people deciding they shouldn’t be the one who rides an ebike to work.
That burger you had for lunch is really McDonald’s fault… for selling burgers instead of vegetables.
Just like in California, where the “new homes” we aren’t building are required to have electric ranges, but literally everyone else never had to change.
It’s all big corporations… nothing to do with housing policies or the fact that your property values could go down if we built more. Nope, just corporations.
That is why some people argue for a more capitalist system where the referee of industry job is to make sure businesses pay for externalities, enabling free trade rather than just shitting on the next guy.
In the end though, the only thing we can control (to some extent) is our own consumption...
I know this sounds extreme. For sure my part in it is way smaller than the CEO of H&M, but I do take part in the system.
I think it's completely the responsibility of the child's employer (or whatever other term you deem appropriate), and I've never understood why others feel differently.
As an example of the same more general question, do you believe in consumer demand driving production?
I would find it very odd if you believe in downstream effects but not downstream responsibility.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-025-02325-x
confirmation bias