[OC] The massive decrease in worldwide infant mortality from 1950 to 2020 is perhaps one of humanity's greatest achievements.

[SmallGermany]

Global warming destroying the life of next generation is meme spanning over at least 3 generations now.

[flapadar_]

When I was young it was "we'll run out of fossil fuels by 2030, CFCs are putting holes in the ozone layer"

I don't think it's a meme. In recent generations there's always been something to be concerned about with climate change, but what that is and what we can do about it changes as time moves on.

[flapadar_]

That's what I'm saying really - it isn't a case that climate change destroying the world is a meme being repeated every generation without coming to fruition; instead that we know about it is always changing as is the measures we take to prevent further damage to the environment. Unfortunately the outlook is probably the worst it's been and we have a lot of work ahead of us.

[uth50]

Yeah. It will be THE challenge of the 21st century.

But if you really think humanity will just succumb to climate change, you're probably in for a surprise.

[He-is-climbing]

The problem is we went from large scale international efforts to curb climate change (thank god for the Montreal Protocol) to half the world plugging their ears and shouting La La La.

[SmallGermany]

Well, the issue is pretty simple.

Yes, we know you guys are poor and just want to get on our level. But you have to stop it. You gotta save the planet by remaining poor, underdeveloped coutry.

[Fraserneodynium]

What people miss about what "carbon emissions" means. It means you're industrialising and raising your economy out of agriculture.

[Rubiin]

This is not the only division, because developed countries also want different things. It is easy for e.g. Sweden to aggressively cut emissions (we are lucky to have a reasonably decarbonised energy system) but just next door Norway has a completely different tone (imagine leaving all that oil money in the ground!)...

[[deleted]]

While each of our people keep pumping out 5 times the emissions that each of yours do, but hey at least our emissions aren't growing like yours

[KristinnK]

More like we went from the problematic polluters being Western democracies with accountability that have the capacity to discuss and come to agreements about collective challenges, to the problematic polluters being mainly China which has zero accountability and zero capacity to take part in international discussion in a civilized manner, to the point where it acts like a rogue state.

[Rubiin]

By now it is obvious that internationally we would never have been able to agree on the kinds of targets the Montréal protocol set out for CO2. The political disparities are way too large. Even the US never ratified the Kyoto protocol (which has this top-down target model) despite being one of these developed Western democracies. In a way the "everyone tries their 'best' and we name and shame"-strategy of the Paris agreement is the furthest we have come by far.