Re the discussion upthread, I was 50-50 myself on whether climate change would be better or worse than OTL when writing that part because there are arguments for both, so I may revise that part if I'm convinced it should be the other.
It depends on exactly how developed China (particularly southern China), Russia, Bengal, and the Combine really are, and whether North America and Western/Central Europe are less so in some way.
From the way they’re portrayed, though, each of Russia and China seems to be within shouting distance of the ENA or France, akin to the level of development seen in Czechia or Northern Italy IOTL in the 1940’s and 50’s. Bengal is less discussed but also seems to be significantly wealthier than IOTL, perhaps akin to OTL’s Argentina at the time. Guinea, likewise, though to a lesser extent.
Meanwhile the Southern Cone was, pre-Combine, shown to be as wealthy and developed as the ENA, though less populous.
IOTL’s 1950, the fifth largest cumulative emitter of carbon after the US (100B metric tons), modern-day EU’s members (70B) UK (40B), and Russia (8B), was Canada (5B). The total was around 220-230B tons.
ITTL the largest cumulative emitter is likely to be the ENA, barely, but Russia and China will be right on its heels and set to surpass it soon, with Western and Central Europe not far behind, and Bengal right there. Russia might hit 10X or more OTL’s emissions and China and Bengal are probably closer to 30-40X.
And then there’s the Combine. Maybe even more than the ENA by 1950? Who knows? But certainly not the piddling contributions of OTL’s Argentina, Chile, or Brazil at that time.
That might well put the total above 600B.
Worse, with the lesser reliance on oil and thus natural gas, in favor of coal, and no breakthroughs in civilian nuclear power on the horizon before the 1970’s, we’ve baked that differential in until at least 1980. IOTL the figure was around 500B tons, ITTL it might be 1800B, versus
today’s total of 1550B in 2020 IOTL.
Like I said, gibbering panic.
