[SpacePortKnight]

Only emissions per capita counts. Just because those countries have more population than entire continents of Africa and Europe, does not mean it's their fault.

USA emits almost 8 times more emission per capita when compared to India. Rather India is so poor, that it must increase it's energy generation by any means possible.

So an Indian on average consumes just 1/8 of a USA citizen.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita

[notacoward]

This is, unfortunately, a case where fairness and feasibility don't align well. Is it fair to expect Indians to rein in their emissions when those are already lower (per capita) than the US? Hell no. Asked and answered. Is it feasible? That's a trickier question, and it won't be possible to answer it without addressing loss aversion.

"we feel the pain from losses about twice as much as we feel the joy of equivalent gains" https://insidebe.com/articles/loss-aversion/ (link to original "prospect theory" paper - the most cited in economics by some measures - where that text appears)

Loss aversion is usually discussed as part of behavioral economics, but it appears all over the place. For example, many casual games have a "start paying real money or you'll start losing" dark pattern that's based on loss aversion.

With respect to the current question, it's clearly very hard to make people give up a high-emissions lifestyle once they've experienced it. Getting people to maintain a lower-emissions lifestyle is much easier. Again, it's not fair. Absolutely not, and I'm not really suggesting it as The Solution. However, understanding loss aversion might help to understand why people keep bringing it up.