Comment by temp123098

But do those hypothetical people care enough to make some actual sacrifices for those strangers?

For most people, replacing your car with an electric one isn't a big deal. Replacing a car with public transportation is either impossible (living in the boonies), incredibly difficult (suburbia) or merely very annoying (city).

I very much doubt the average person is willing to give up his car for some nebulous greater good of some strangers half a world away, especially when he hears of Jeff Bozos of this world shutting down half of Venice for a wedding so 50 private jets can ferry fellow fat cats to have a good time. But you, Joe Schmo, ought to use paper straws, sit in 30C room in the summer and sit at home instead of traveling for vacations. To save the planet.

The situation isn't much different in non-Western countries. Over the last few years China did more for electrification from renewable sources than the rest of the world combined, and yet they're also building a lot of coal power plants because that's what they have so that's what they'll use, damn everybody else. India isn't going to willingly stay poor so that ivory tower elites can feel good about themselves. Countries with oil reserves, majorly non-western, certainly aren't going to not extract it for the good of the planet.