I would like to make a few points related to this piece in The Economist and this piece in the Harvard Crimson.
The Economist magazine celebrates that the U.S and the European Nations are now working together to minimize geopolitical threats posed by China and Russia AND are working together to slow the pace of global climate change.
In 2023, do the United States and Europe lead the world? Rough arithmetic suggests that the U.S + Europe equals roughly 900 million people in a world with over 8 billion people (a 15% share). Europe + the U.S equals 30% of global GDP. Basic economics predicts that these shares will decline over time as the rest of the world grows. This blog post will explore how the U.S + Europe can change the pace of climate change even if its global share of economic activity (and hence political influence) is shrinking.
Senator John Kerry understands this issue. Here is a quote of his from the Harvard Crimson article;
While John Kerry is unlikely to have read my recent NBER paper with Somik Lall, his quote touches on our key themes.
Here is our paper’s abstract
The U.S Inflation Reduction Act bundles in large green energy subsidies. These subsidies will accelerate the development of renewable power generation equipment. Will the firms who own these patents sell this output to the developing world at low prices? Will developing world nations simply copy (without compensating) developed world companies for their intellectual property?
The emerging middle class in developing nations rely on old, cheap durables such as fridge, transport, computers. In the year 2035, will they be purchasing new, cheap, energy efficient, green powered products?
Global GHG emissions = Population*GDP per person*Emissions per dollar of GDP
I claim that the first two terms will grow faster than the last term will shrink for decades into the future. This is the “great race” between the quantity and the quality of economic growth.
As the U.S and the EU seek to decarbonize, will their efforts increase or decrease emissions in the developing world? If fossil fuels that would have been consumed in richer nations are now exported or diverted to the developing world (because the rich nations have gone green), then this leakage effect contributes to rising GHG emissions in the rest of the world. Conversely, if the rich nations give their technology to the developing world AND if the developing world scales up their use of this technology then the Rich world’s “green push” accelerates the decarbonization of the rest of the world.
My comment didn't appear for some reason. Assuming it isn't because you deleted it, trying again:
"I claim that the first two terms will grow faster than the last term will shrink for decades into the future." This seems plausible for the next decade or so but beyond that, it's less clear. We can certainly expect GDP per capita to grow (with a few exceptions perhaps in Africa in war torn and/or especially badly managed countries). But the population factor may slow down drastically. The forecasts depend a lot on education improvements and other factors. The projections for 2060 vary by a billion! The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (which seems to have the best methodology) projects global population peaking around 2064. The Wittgenstein Center is close to that. The UN's most likely projection shows global population peaking in the 2080s.
Another wild card is nuclear power. If growing countries adopt a sensible regulatory regime -- unlike that in the USA and now almost everywhere -- nuclear generation costs could fall by 2/3 or even 3/4.
All this discussion apparently assumes that more carbon in the atmosphere is bad. The benefits are rarely discussed. For some reason, it's generally assumed that the immediately pre-industrial temperature was optimal.