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Comment by somsak2 | Hacker News Reader

problem is, unlike other issues that can have positive local impacts, the biggest downsides to climate change are global. doesn't really matter that as the US/EU our emissions have been flat for decades now if china and India are shooting up like crazy.

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Well, yes it does.

The USA is still the biggest polluter, even with 1/5 the population of China.

Also, making the technology viable and proving it so is the only solution.

The US is not the largest GHG polluter. China is, by a large measure.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/271748/the-largest-emitt...

Sure, if you're talking per capita, US people emit more carbon dioxide but with your "even with 1/5th" and "the biggest polluter" it suggests you're thinking total not per capita.

Should have fact checked myself on that one.

The US were for a long time. But now it’s China. Although they already are the biggest producer of green energy world wide. They produce more green energy than all other countries combined. I don’t know if their strategy will drastically reduce their carbon emissions soon, for now they are still rising. In Europe and the US they are going down a while already (also because we moved a lot of our industry to china).

Correct. China is moving the fastest in large 5 economies to decarbonize their economy.

They produce and install more solar panels then every other country combined.

Yes, it's impressive what they are doing. But I think their total amount of carbon emissions are still rising in total. So their energy consumption seems to grow faster than their green energy production.

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