Are we in the opening scenes of a post-apocalyptic movie?

[Sheilbh]

It's less than half China's and has been consistently falling for twenty years. It's two thirds of its peak which was about 2005. The signs are that is accelerating and a significant part of that is because of Chinese tech and manufacturing increasing the roll-out of solar. China's making energy transition possible at scale and cheap.

Also to be kind of blunt the laggard in the G7 is Canada The UK, France and Germany all peaked in the 70s. Italy peaked around 2005 (like the US and Japan) and all of those countries have been on strong downward trajectories since then (some from a higher starting point than others). For example just to look at the last twenty years as I say the US has cut emissions to about two thirds of 2005, so has Germany and France, Japan's at about three quarters of where it was and Italy and the UK are at or below 60% of 2005 levels. Canada is still at between 90-95% of 2005 emissions.

But the bigger point is in that period China's emissions more than doubled - it is currently emitting more than the entire OECD. So, yeah, I think focusing there is important - and there are big positive signs.

Edit: Again I think this is the de-centring to an extent. On climate - which I think is a canary in the coal mine to an extent - the most important decisions for the planet will be from Beijing and Delhi, not Brussels and DC. It's the first issue where that's really clear but it won't be the last.

[The Minsky Moment]

Temporary is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. It's been 5 centuries.

Global manufacturing was concentrated in China and India until the late 18th century.  So the ascendancy of the world between California and the Elbe runs from about 1750-2010.  Not an insignificant period, but in the context of millennia, a couple hundred years or so can still fairly be called temporary and anomalous.

[Josquius]

Sure - that concerns you.

My point was that it's a question of perspective. I ultimately think the perspective that we're in the intro of a post-apocalyptic movie is one that's basically quite limited. I suspect from Africa it looks very much like BAU, from India and China and Asia more generally I think there are reasons for optimism for many.

A lot of Indians too it's worth noting.
And Chinese though bit many of them in China for some mysterious reason.

I do get your point that when having food on the table was a concern in the recent past a lot of people will be focussed on the here and now and what's best for them.
The whole Putin deal of selling rights for prosperity and security.

But I don't think it's good to lean too far in this  "anti imperialist" direction.
Looking at the big picture global trends are not great this past decade.
And not at all thinking about what is best for me /Britain  here but humanity overall (in which I do think there's a huge overlap in a lot of things except the very particular stuff about me becoming a little bit rich)

[Jacob]

Too bad we can't ignore the US impact on climate change.

I saw an article the that claimed that more than 90% of the US' new energy capacity in 2025 was renewable, in spite of Trump's efforts.

[Sheilbh]

But I don't think it's good to lean too far in this  "anti imperialist" direction.
Looking at the big picture global trends are not great this past decade.
And not at all thinking about what is best for me /Britain  here but humanity overall (in which I do think there's a huge overlap in a lot of things except the very particular stuff about me becoming a little bit rich)

I've said before but on a lot of stuff I am basically an old school Third Worldist (Edit: I went on holiday to Indonesia and literally visited Bandung to see the museum of the Bandung Conference and was, weirdly, interviewed by Japanese journalists who were there because it was the 70th anniversary ) But I take your point and I'm not necessarily celebrating this or saying that what's coming is better. I'm saying that the perspective from Europe is of an ending (which I think is happening) and of threat - but I don't think that's the sense everywhere.

But in terms of apocalypse I think do fundamentally fall on the line that it's not apocalypse it's regime change, it's a period of transition which is inevitably destabilising. Part of mourning the loss should also be that we're clear eyed about the iniquities it was built on as that allows us to have a way of approaching the new. I think the big failure of our system was that it was a closed shop - with the unique exception of post-Communist Europe - we never had a development model that could help the poor or the rest of the world and we never democratised power in the institutions we built to manage the world order. It was always 1990 (at best) which in turn reflected the flaws of the previous order (such as Europe's privileged position).

Although FWIW if I was to go full Copernicus (please don't quote this at me in the future ) I actually think the era we're heading into will be one of a fusion of state and corporate power. In some areas, I think that will proceed through the dismantling of state power and subjugation of political power to the economy and corporate interests (who are delivering the objectives of the "state" in its place). In other areas I think it'll take the form of a minimal state delivering needs to a level necessary to maintain some popular consent, accompanied with looting by political-corporate elites. I think in others, primarily the Communist party states like China, there will still be a mid-20th century vision of the state and political power which will subjugate corporate power to political ends but that the top ends of all three will be exceptionally blurred.

My hope is, as ever, popular sovereignty and the assertion of the supremacy of politics (Edit: and building state capacity) - but I'm not sure I see much sign of it happening.