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[–] 6 points 2 weeks ago*

No, under Capitalism emissions too often act like inflation. You might hit a lower number than originally thought, but that's not the same as the total number decreasing over time.

Capitalism is about infinitely growing the economy. Inflation measures that increase. So when the inflation rate drops, they mean, the rate OF INCREASE dropped (meaning didn't increase as fast but still increased).

The same thing generally happens with emissions most of the time. AI data centers that exist will still exist, but rather than being used for AI some other function would be found, either as server space, or online gaming, subscription services, research departments, mapping/processing centers. There'll be other uses.

During the bubble, other industries will have grown their emissions, covering over any fall.

Without mass switching to green energy in multiple countries/industries at once, we won't see a genuine drop. Here's the world's emissions graphed:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/thumbnail/ghg-emissions-by-world-region.png?imType=og

The "drops" last in the range of months before the yearly trend of an increasing continues up. There appears to be a plateau but the global south's developing nations are still able to erase that progress as their manufacturing bases grow.

Even if we switch to green energy, emissions will just dip, then continue back up at a slower rate, because Capitalism will find new growth industries - that's the problem and why defrowth is so important.

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