What even worse is farmers in poor countries in hot climates dealing with instability and extreme heat when their livelihoods depend on doing hard, outdoors labor. The carbon footprints of poor countries tend to be much lower and they are often the ones most affected by climate change. This is one driver of political instability in the Middle East (beyond the stuff the US and it's allies do to fuck with the region directly).
this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2026
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According to Wikipedia, France is 74th highest out of 208 countries in CO2 emissions per capita. A little better than most rich countries but not as good as Sweden, Switzerland, or Portugal.
That's actually pretty good, and that doesn't even factor in real GDP. You actually got me interested in creating the carbon intensity of GDP, so that's what I did. Here's a basic view, probably could be refined a bit better.
I think "carbon intensity" is pretty much a scam. The atmosphere does not care how much GDP you measure. It's irrelevant.
It is relevant when it comes to human productivity, like the computers we are using to communicate, the food we eat and the water we drink. Carbon intensity is effectively an attempt to measure efficiency. Like how efficiently do you produce food and water?
It's not the most important measure of anything. We're all conditioned to think of it as way more significant than it is.
You were the one who originally mentioned the CO2 emissions per capita, here are the leaders and losers:
These countries barely produce anything compared to USA/China/Russia, it doesn't mean much.
It means quite a lot. There are better measures of economic development than GDP, but no developed country doesn't emit far too much greenhouse gas. Being slightly less stinky than your peers in that crowd is not much to boast about.
I need that better measure of economic development than GDP then, please point me to it and I'll use it in the analysis. I know about the HDI, maybe I should use that instead?
I'm not an expert and it's complicated. If you're not averse to youtube video essays I enjoyed this recent one from Unlearning Economics which talks about one way to think about what's going on and incidentally highlights some other metrics that can be informative. Thinking about that was the reason it was on my mind.
HDI is pretty respectable as far as I know but I'm not sure what you're aiming to use it for.
Basically, how much does the country produce per unit of carbon dioxide emitted.
How much human development it produces? Personally I wouldn't expect any relationship between the two to be easy to interpret. Although there's bound to be some rough correlation, it may in large part be a historical accident reflecting the patterns of technology adoption over the past century or three which wouldn't necessarily say much about the choices facing us today. But maybe you'll find something interesting β good luck!
France, the country that enslaved half the world, coup'd Libya for daring to try to be independent from them (really trying to move all of Africa away from European settler colonialism permanently), threatened to coup Burkino Faso before the Junta showed extreme competency with modern warfare, and is desperately negotiating with their current slave states to stay "partners" so French people can continue to enjoy luxury without having to actually work?
Like yay, you used some of the blood diamonds to make nuclear power 50 years ago and some of your politicians plan to someday start doing more nuclear power. How's that international shipping of goods and services from your captured slave states doing for climate change?
The entire diamond industry is a scam anyway, read about the De Beers Group. Most of what you wrote is completely irrelevant.
Many people are so afraid of nuclear power, and nuclear waste, they'd rather we burn coal. Irrational.
They needed to shut off their reactors, because the rivers they use for cooling are over heating
And we still haven't found a real solution for the trash - and none reactor is profitable without government money (not even including the handling of the trash)
And we still havenβt found a real solution for the trash
We have multiple solutions for the trash, including the current 'hold it on site in nearly indestructible comically sized barrels.' The other solutions include storing it deep underground in much more efficient caskets (it would take powering the entire world's energy needs for centuries to fill one casket, current proposals have several dozen caskets being built and buried), recycler reactors which can reduce the energy of the fuel to being practically inert within a few years of useful operation (and that's even without JTEC ever coming to be), and simply using it for fuel on space probes.
and none reactor is profitable without government money (not even including the handling of the trash)
Services are not to be profitable or unprofitable. They are not companies. It is a failure of capitalism that things essential to life are handled by private entities.
Also, Coal power generation isn't profitable without government subsidies of both Coal and the power plants, and they have no clean up of the massive radiation leaks they constantly emit.
Then why do we still search for a solution for long-term storage e.g. in Germany
and every solution has the problem, that the solution of the time seems to be incompatible with future usage?
Like all the barrels we just threw into a salt cave and broke open over time are now really expensive to retrieve
We're talking about time ranges, that are just too long for us to handle safe storage
All the stuff we hear about usage of waste - to at least make the waste of that a bit easier to handle - is still just experimental
Wouldn't this would be highly profitable to take all the waste for money and use it to generate energy?
And still, somehow we don't do it
That's not just politics, sorry
Edit: and needing to shut off reactors, because it gets too hot, doesn't really sound future proof
Then why do we still search for a solution for long-term storage e.g. in Germany
Because the Coal lobby in Germany currently controls half the Parliament. There is no 'search for a long term storage solution.' There is a 'lets immediately shut down all proposed long term storage solutions with no actual reason given.'
Germany's parliament has rejected:
- Burying Nuclear Waste.
- Building new plants that can use existing waste as fuel.
- Paying countries that do Bury or recycle waste to handle the nuclear waste.
- On-site long term Caskets.
- All long term space related exploration, and thus all space related nuclear solutions.
This isn't 'searching for a solution,' this is 'coal money is more important than actually doing anything.'
Like all the barrels we just threw into a salt cave and broke open over time are now really expensive to retrieve
You mean the barrels that the IAEA didn't approve for the environment Germany stored them in and were not recommended for long term off-site storage at all? The ones that Germany's nuclear oversight agency chose despite international and industry warnings?
Weird how that didn't work out for you.
Weβre talking about time ranges, that are just too long for us to handle safe storage
Non-Portland-Concrete encased Titanium and Lead alloyed caskets have an average estimated decay lifespan close to the decay time of the sun, so no, not really.
All the stuff we hear about usage of waste - to at least make the waste of that a bit easier to handle - is still just experimental
It's actually not. Recycle reactors have been in use in China for close to a decade now, there's at least one commercialized product ready to be deployed in the US, and if the Amerisraeli empire would stop bombing Iran for two fucking seconds Iran's main design uses low grade uranium which would allow a 'second life' to most disposed fuel from western designs with minimal enrichment.
Edit: and needing to shut off reactors, because it gets too hot, doesnβt really sound future proof
There is not one singular type of nuclear reactor. Molten Sodium reactors do not have this problem. Heck just more modern reactors in general don't have this problem. Fun fact did you know there are geothermal cooled reactors? Seems like a perfect solution there.
That didn't work out for me?
You don't need to get personal and I'm not even from Germany
And so you see where I'm coming from:
I'm for a clean energy mix and do hope, that we can produce some good storage options in the near future - molten salt sounds promising for example
But yeah, we can't solve all our energy issues with solar and wind, probably
I've just heard too many promises from the nuclear industry and stuff like, we only need to store it a few thousand (or even just a few hundred) years
I'm not trusting humanity enough, that we can do this in a safe manner
We fuck too much up in just a few years, to give me trust to plan for something for not even 100 years
Yeah, coal, gas etc are shit, I'm with you
But looking at building a nuclear reactor it's always like 2 billion and just 3 years of time - and then it's 15 billion and nearly 10 years
(Maybe I'm exaggerating here, but that's not too far off)
I don't see this to be a solution in the short term and I still think that we can't handle the danger good enough.
Also, I'm pretty sure, that we're heading for a world war with climate change.
Centralised power generation is an easy target as well
I'd really love to have a good solution here and I'm open for nuclear energy, but every few years I look into it and there is either much bullshit like Thorium reactors, that promise everything, but seem to...let's say only theoretical, or we face problems, I don't trust humanity in its current state with it
Edit: you even said yourself, that they didn't store the old waste according to regulations
Why should I trust authorities to do it now suddenly?
We don't really seem much wiser...