November 21, 2014
That’s the only conclusion that can be drawn from his column denouncing President Obama’s agreement with China on restricted emissions as a “swindle.” Krauthammer is upset that China would be allowed to continue increasing emissions until 2030, whereas the United States is expected to hasten its pace of emission reductions beginning immediately.
It is only possible to see this arrangement as being somehow unfair to the United States if we ignore how much each country is emitting per person. By this measure, China will never come close to current U.S. levels. And, since the problem is one of historical emissions (the carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere for centuries), if China follows the path agreed to last week, it will never be responsible for anywhere near as much harm to the environment on a per person basis as the United States.
Since these facts are pretty straightforward, Krauthammer must somehow not view per person emissions as being relevant and instead think that allowable emissions per country should be independent of their population. If that is the case, then Krauthammer’s sense of fairness would allow smaller countries throughout the world to emit as much greenhouse gas as the United States. In that scenario it would of course be a waste for the United States to spend any money reducing emissions, as Krauthammer argues.
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