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The deal is unenforceable, very expensive, and most likely will fail. Also, China emits twice as much greenhouse gas as the United States.
by Danihan 9y ago
The deal is unenforceable, very expensive, and most likely will fail. Also, China emits twice as much greenhouse gas as the United States.
- tzs 9y ago> Also, China emits twice as much greenhouse gas as the United States. Not per capita, which is what is relevant when it comes to setting a country's policies.
- Danihan 9y agoSo as long as your country is overflowing with poverty-stricken people, you're a role model for solidly low carbon emissions per capita? Got it..
- dguaraglia 9y agoOh, moving the goalposts. The classical right-wing strategy.
- Danihan 9y agoHow is that moving the goalposts? Any poor, overpopulated country is going to have low per-capita carbon emissions, true or false? They also have a lower quality of life and poor GDP. Not exactly a positive goal to shoot for.
- dguaraglia 9y agoYou started by saying China emits double the amount of greenhouse gasses the US does. Someone pointed out that it's still lower on a per-capita basis, so you switched tack to "oh, well, yeah, but... WHY DO POOR COUNTRIES GET A PASS!" That, my friend, is moving the goalposts. So you want the US, richest nation in the world, to be held to the same standards as developing countries. Even though, in our economy, pushing for green energy actually generates more jobs than trying to bring back polluting industries. What, exactly, is there to gain from that?
- Danihan 9y agoI'm not trying to set (or move) any goalposts, I'm just pointing out that per capita emissions is a fairly useless metric to judge anything by, for reasons we seem to agree on. Ideally, I'd want the free market to manage the standards via private certification, rather than some monolithic, global, unenforceable treaty that is little more than virtue signaling via giving developing countries lots of free money for no (or negligible) return.
- pouetpouet 9y agoThe US emit more than double per capita.
- Danihan 9y agoSo you're saying you want to emulate countries that have much denser populations, countries who are so poor that they can't afford much carbon-producing industry, yet who continue to have unsustainable birthrates? I'm pretty sure the US sets a better example on that front. Carbon per capita aside, do you realize how much pollution China and India produce? Do you realize what the rivers and lakes are like in those countries? Yet you want to pay them Billions of dollars from US taxpayers to enable them to do even more of the same? How does that make sense?
- fvdessen 9y agoUSA's emissions/gdp are close to the world's average, and have been improving at the same rate as other nations. It is not doing a bad job at environment and there isn't a valid reason to single it out [1] [1] http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/File:Energy_intensity,_2003_and_2013.png http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/...
- kneth 9y agoWell, China has more than four times as many citizens.
- Danihan 9y agoAnd therein lies the problem.
- oblio 9y agoA fellow HackerNews reader had a great quote, I don't remember the source. You're basically complaining that China has too many people and would presumably want that some of them wouldn't exist. His quote was: "If you think a certain group of people shouldn't exist, how do you select that group of people? And how do you know that you, yourself, shouldn't he a part of that group?". China's population is a fact. In the end, you can't argue against facts. And in their current circumstances, China, a much poorer per capita country than the US, is willing to sacrifice a bit of their profits for long term stability. The US is basically eating its own seed corn.
- Danihan 9y ago> would presumably want that some of them wouldn't exist. I simply don't want to pay to enable them even more. When the proper social constraints aren't in place, money = energy = more babies. It's poor policy to continually reward countries that are chronically overcrowded and polluted, it just makes the issues worse long-term. >The US is basically eating its own seed corn. It's hilarious to me that you believe this when ~85% of the rivers in China are qualified as "very polluted" or "extremely polluted."
- neaden 9y agoIt's almost like they have more people then the US does? Like about four times as many?