Originally Posted by
43Inches
The problem is that per capita Australia produces double the CO2 that China does and 6 times the amount India does, it sounds crazy, but poor people don't use as much as rich affluent citizens. So in order to reduce the carbon footprint in those countries you would create some huge humanitarian issues by removing what little access the poorer population has to modern services. Where in Australia the impost is far less as those at the middle and top are excessive consumers of energy and CO2 producing goods.
Simple way of illustrating it, Australia has 1.8 cars per household, China has 1 car between 3 households. In India the figure is lower than 1 car per 11 households.
Once you get the handle on those figures it is quite clear we produce more pollution than we should, ie for comfort, fun, pleasure, whatever, while those other countries are producing pollution just to sustain population. What that means is they have almost no way to reduce the figure in reality without causing humanitarian disasters.
When one digs a little deeper into the "broad" figure that is thrown around of 70 odd % of Australian emissions being from dirty power generation, it becomes more apparent that that is BS. They always bundle the first 4 into that figure. As depicted below, from the CSIRO November 2021 statistics.
Energy production is the largest contributor to Australia’s carbon emissions. This is followed by transport, agriculture, and industrial processes. Specifically:
- energy (burning fossil fuels to produce electricity) contributed 33.6 per cent of the total emissions
- stationary energy (including manufacturing, mining, residential and commercial fuel use) 20.4 per cent
- transport 17.6 per cent
- agriculture 14.6 per cent
- fugitive emissions 10.0 per cent
- industrial processes 6.2 per cent
- waste 2.7 per cent.
So, to supply the "third world" emerging economies with the material and fuel to "survive"; as the worlds quarry, we contribute a large chunk of emissions to merely allow these nations to function and manufacture. Therefore, per capita: we wear those emissions for them to dig it up and supply it.
Greens policy is to not mine it ourselves, or mine it to sell it to others..... that will end well.
We will even wear the carbon footprint for the massive solar farm in the NT that will supply Singapore. Yes, solar does have a carbon footprint. Where do you think the 4500km cable will come from?