On the climate deal

In this Mark Lynas piece, mostly China and a little bit India comes in for criticism for the failure of the climate talks at Copenhagen.

Let us look at some numbers, provided by Wikipedia.

As of 2006, per capita, China emitted 4.6 tons of carbon dioxide annually, India 1.3 and the US 19. If we take Denmark as the exemplar, (as Thomas Friedman does), note that it is at 9.9 tons of co2 per capita per annum and falling.

It is simply not politically feasible for the governments of India or China to yield on the theoretical increased standard of living for their people, when their economies use more energy and increase emission — in the case of China double, and in the case of India, increase 7-fold — to the level of Denmark any more than it is politically feasible for the US to agree to halve its per capita annual emission of carbon dioxide from 19 to 9.5 tons per annum.

Of course, the bargain being sought is to balance theoretical future growth (of China, India) versus existing standards of living (of the United States, other OECD countries).

Yes, this is overall suicidal for humans on the planet. Even the Denmark-level of co2 emission on a global per capita basis is too high for the planet. But get realistic. Unless it is provable that a high standard of living is possible at a lower level of emission, or that everyone on the globe aims for the same lower level of emission and standard of living, there will be little agreement.

PS: let us also note that the US has in effect shifted a portion its emissions to China by outsourcing manufacturing but not reducing its material consumption.