When do Fridays for Future protest in front of the Chinese embassy?

One thing is missing in the German debate on the IPCC report: the global dynamics including the question of which countries are working to save the climate – and which countries are still making the situation worse.

The international community as a whole must reduce emissions. Otherwise the earth cannot be saved. At least not before the temperature rises by far more than 1.5 degrees, which, according to the climate protectors, are just barely bearable.

These are the sober numbers of the development of CO-2 emissions compared to the reference year 1990: China has quadrupled its climate pollution, from 2,420 to 10,174 million tons. Germany has reduced it by 30 percent, from 1052 to 702 million tons. Other EU countries are even better.

The US has almost stopped increasing its emissions (5,284 million tons), as has Japan (1,106 million tons). India has almost quintupled its output to 2,616 million tons.

Where’s the political pressure on Beijing?

This begs the question: Why are German climate protectors, including Fridays for Future, not protesting in front of China’s embassy and India’s embassy?

Not enough is happening in the West either. That’s right. Germany, the fourth largest economic power in the world, is not yet on track to achieve the promised 55 percent reduction by 2030. Public protest pressure can help. But at least Germany and the EU are doing something.

A comparable political pressure of the climate movement on by far the largest polluter of all countries on earth, however, is missing: the People’s Republic of China. It is now responsible for more than 30 percent of emissions. The next largest polluter, the US, for less than half as much. The entire EU for only a third of the Chinese values.

Two popular objections – but the climate cannot be negotiated with

While western industrialized countries incur significant costs and restrictions to reduce emissions, China continues to increase its emissions. Its promises when it wants to change course concern a distant future, of which Fridays for Future would say: We are long dead.

In Germany, two objections are usually raised in this debate. First, one has to take into account who contributed how much to the pollution of the atmosphere in the course of the history of the industrial age. In this cumulative view, the Europeans and Americans are still ahead of the Chinese.

Second, one should calculate the emissions per head of the population. And the Chinese have only just caught up with the Europeans. And US citizens are still ahead.

But how do these two pointers get along with the general argument in view of the red alert: The climate cannot be negotiated with? Should the climate go to the dogs because, according to the criterion of historical justice, China is allowed to continue to cause massive damage to the globe?

China has the same economic power as the EU with three times the output

It would make more sense to argue: Every country has an obligation to provide climate protection that is technically possible today. The technologies for cleaner production are there. China today has roughly the same economic power (calculated on the basis of purchasing power parity) as the USA or the EU. However, it produces this comparable gross national product with three times as many emissions as the EU and with twice as many emissions as the USA. To put it bluntly: China is allowing itself massive damage to the climate in order to gain a competitive advantage.

Saving the climate is a global task. The goal cannot be achieved as long as individual states such as China, with their growing emissions, destroy what climate-conscious states in Europe are saving in emissions. Or connect more new coal-fired power plants to the grid than Europe closes. Why shouldn’t climate protection activists also make this connection clear in demonstrations?