> And your solution is to push all the effort on others, because there are more of them? You still did not address in the slightest how this could ever work-- how are you going to convince the Chinese people that they need to reduce their emissions from 8 to 5 tons each, while EVERY american citizen emits 15?!
Negotiation only works when it benefits both sides. Also, your statement is not correct - not EVERY American produces 15 because this is a statistical figure. In the US, industry (and the associated lifestyle) is inefficient in terms of CO2 emissions. And of course the government will be reluctant to transform so as not to jeopardise the wellbeing of its citizens and the re-election that comes with it.
The negotiations are exclusively about tangible facts, not about any morally felt superiority. And in doing so, the government always looks after its own advantages first.
> How so? Every nation is going to implement these on their own anyway, and this can all happen in parallel. The US is not gonna be any faster or slower in electrifying vehicles or cleaning up power generation just because China does the same at the same time...
Contracts are something for the public to show everyone that you care. But in fact they are worth nothing as a guarantee. And it is particularly practical if each nation implements this for itself - so you can give it a certain priority, but in Xi's calculation of his own preservation of power, this will certainly not play a major role.
Simple example: The EU has a stability pact. If you break it over a period of several years, you have to expect sanctions. This has been applied several times for some countries (Italy, etc.). Then came Germany. And broke it over several years. But nothing happened. Why? Because Germany is too important as a donor for the EU.
A treaty is only worth something if someone with power can use it as an argument. But someone with power can also not care about the treaty and can break it at will. Later, they simply negotiate a new one.
> But I still believe that we're gonna fail the 2°C threshold because we did too little too late.
The world is constantly changing. Yes, climate is changing. It doesn't matter how much influence humans (a very dominant part of the ecosystem after all) have on it. We are part of the system and of course we influence it.
One could also see this as an opportunity. The melting of the glaciers is just revealing old Roman roads that people used in the past. So we've been at this point before without the apocalypse breaking in.
The problem I see is rather these completely detached ideological discussions. Science now sees itself as a political actor rather than an advisor. "Last warning" sounds like parents who are not happy with their offspring. Thus they undermine their credibility. Why should I trust statistics from a politician? Irrevocable cliff points? That's rubbish. I have been studying the behaviour of complex, non-deterministic, feedback systems for over 20 years. Climate belongs exactly to this class. In none of these systems has it been possible to see "irreversible cliff points". These systems consist partly of structure, partly of chaos. And they are constantly optimising themselves. They change.
So it makes little difference whether a human being or a volcano causes this change. We should rather invest in precautions for the changes than try to control the world climate from above. We should try to give nature space - to coexist.
Instead in Germany, they are cutting down ancient forests to build wind turbines. Nobody is interested in the fact that wind and sun are not reliable energy suppliers. You can't run a country and say to a steel industry: "Hey, tomorrow you can produce again. There should be a strong wind". The first priority is the well-being of the population. Because if you ignore that, very quickly you have a vote out or a revolution on your hands.
So instead of finding a way to coexist with nature, they prefer to discuss CO2 certificates and flat rates for buses and trains. Where are the discussions to clean the oceans? So instead of preparing for this - or creating more space for nature - we pave everything over with solar cells. Nobody cares that in 20 years we will have a huge mountain of toxic waste. But in the same time future generations are always used as an argument. What a mockery.
At the moment, the whole topic is incredibly emotionally heated. As if we were facing an apocalypse. That's nonsense. When I was at school (this was in the late 80s), the impending apocalypse was acid rain and dying forests. My kids would never see a tree because the environment would be so brutally destroyed.
Then came the apocalypse with the baby seals, then the destruction of the oceans, then the insects, now the climate. And I look out and I still see forests (yes, we have less insects and we should work fixing this).
So there are two possibilities: Either we have just so escaped the apocalypse through heroic action - or it was simply exaggerated. Of course, it must have been the former, because you have to pat yourself on the back for something. Admitting to yourself that you may have been on the wrong track is not an option for many.
I'll give you the following prediction from my experience so far: yes, in 30 years it will get a bit warmer (we can finally grow olives in Germany again) but otherwise the world will keep turning. It didn't kill the Romans, it won't kill us either. We humans will have adapted and will still be arguing about climate change 30 years from now. And the following generation will be very disgruntled about the "last generation" - after all, they will have to justify why they are making demands again.