cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/48586784
this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2026
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Europe (alongside the USA and other countries of the "western world") has been releasing disgusting amounts of climate change-inducing gases since the 18th century, and they (alongside the USA) were the main profiteers of climate pollution until the latter half of the 20th century. Arguably still are, though other countries like China and Brazil also play a part now.
Granted, this treats nations as monoliths, it's not like the population of most countries really had a choice for the most part.
The fact that Aviation and Maritime transports are visible, alongside large countries and continents emissions, is absolutely nuts.
In context: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita?time=earliest..2024
Per capita Europe is close to world average. Your comment makes no sense.
(I'm a bit harsh)
Nice of you to side-track with current emissions (per capita even), and not cumulative historical emissions, which were actually mentioned.
Feel free to compare different countries yourself: https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions-metrics (~~I'm not sure why ourworldindata doesn't just put all of this on one page instead of splitting it up. It's always a hassle to find the right one~~ it even is on the same page, I just didn't look close enough) The more interesting comparison might be high-income vs low-income countries.
To get back to the discussion: Yes, Europes share is not as huge as it used to be, and it's getting lower, but what can be seen from @Tehdastehdas@piefed.social graph is that that's less due to Europe behaving better and rather due to other countries polluting more. Not a good argument for saying "Europe is doing better now"
Right now, yes, but for the vast majority of history it wasn't even close. Your link shows that China only met the EU's per capita emissions in 2013, when climate change was already pretty far along. And they are still profiting from their past emissions via the wealth and societal development that they generated back then.
That's fair, but you can't deny Europe has done much better than its counterparts for more than 2 decades. Europe is not the guilty one there.
But, consider this: there was a time from before two decades ago. There are rumours that there are even people who are older than 20. Scary, I know.
So you're blaming mistakes made more than 20 years ago while forgetting those who were made since? Totally objective and fair opinion...