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Why is the Paris Accord "bad"? A major economic and ecological policy agreed on by nearly the entire planet is no small task. It took years to create and is a

Why is the Paris Accord "bad"? A major economic and ecological policy agreed on by nearly the entire planet is no small task. It took years to create and is a compromise - we can do better and that was the plan, to iterate on it.

dkhenry 9y ago
Its bad because its not a level playing field. Its tips the global economy away from Americans because they are too "Developed". Turns out there are lots of Americans in fly over country who disagree.
- lelandbatey 9y ago
  It is true that they disagree. It is not true that they're lives are definitely harder. For every person in the US, there are four in China. Even imagining that China had the same wealth distribution as the US, which it does not, that still means there are vastly, vastly (at least 4x) more people with lives that are empirically more painful, with less medicine, less availability of electricity, and less food. This isn't because China is doing a bad job, it's because there are a lot of people.
  - dkhenry 9y ago
    You are correct that there are many more people in China and that being poor in China is worse then being poor in America, but the solution is not to export global competitiveness to other countries until their quality of living is on par with Americans. Once that ability goes away it will not come back, and as you can tell no one really cares about the plight of rural Americans who stand to be the biggest losers from the change
    - usaar333 9y ago
      No one is talking about giving developing countries a pass until their GDP per capitas are on par with developed nations.. Even with business as usual emissions, China's per capita GDP will maybe be half of what the US's will be in 35 years. I doubt climate mitigation policies would chip away at much of that difference.
- ryanobjc 9y ago
  The fact is the US polluted the living fuck out of the world to get to it's developed status, and then turns around and says "no you cant do that". So a level playing field already makes no sense. The point of this is to achieve reasonable outcomes, while also allowing developing countries to grow reasonably (and live another billion out of poverty) while helping them with it. If the developed worlds can't afford another $100b, I really don't know what to say? Especially considering a lot of that comes around to contracts and exported goods from the very same developed countries! They're not about to start printing solar cells in a country that is barely feeding itself! As for "fly over country"... I really dont know what to say here. The world doesn't work like the simplistic metaphors that are being peddled to them. For example, the 'government budget is like a family budget' is a nonsensical analogy that is false. Or comparing government debt to credit card debt. These analogies stand in to trick the casual reader in to certain points of view (anti tax and anti government spending ones as it turns out). What to do about this? Well, honestly, outlawing Fox News would probably be a good start.
  - dkhenry 9y ago
    You are looking at this from a macro level and completely ignoring the actual repercussions these policy's have. These other countries who you are saying need to "Develop" are not behind the "Developed" countries in any metric other then quality of life statistics. However the policy gives them an advantage in a globally equivalent marketplace. So no it isn't a reasonable outcome to ask a sovereign people to not be able to compete for business fairly simply because on average their citizens have more money then another country.
    - _jal 9y ago
      > These other countries who you are saying need to "Develop" are not behind the "Developed" countries in any metric other then quality of life statistics That little figure happens to be kinda important. In fact, I'll go out on a limb and state that most people consider their quality of life to be somewhat more important than abstract ideas about global economic policy. "Fairness" had nothing to do with how we got here. Or, to flip it around, why would any country (let alone the ones the U.S. has abused for various reasons, artificially retarding their growth) agree to a model that dooms their citizens to a pre-industrial life? This is no different than the arguments for flat taxes because progressive income tax is "unfair".
- azernik 9y ago
  That's where you and I disagree. The different requirements laid on developing vs. developed countries are in my opinion a feature, not a bug. Demanding from India and and Sub-Saharan Africa to remain pre-industrial nations while we get to keep polluting at a much higher per-capita rate is not in any sense a "level playing field" - it's grandfathering in the advantage we currently gain by polluting more.
  - tropo 9y ago
    Yes, it would be "grandfathering in the advantage we currently gain". You don't want that advantage? Are you tired of winning? Trump said: "We gonna win so much you may even get tired of winning and you'll say please, please Mr. president, It's too much winning! We can't take it anymore!" Look, it was a joke. You're expected to like winning. I suppose you could move elsewhere on the non-level playing field if you actually don't like winning. You'd have to make some major lifestyle changes. I bet you do like winning.
    - atonse 9y ago
      Except in this case you aren't winning. We're all losing. The climate isn't just going to be nice on developed nations 20 years from now. It's going to be bad for all nations because we didn't act. We're all losing. Already.
    - azernik 9y ago
      You work so hard on "winning" that you push much more poor and desperate people to the breaking point, you're going to have problems.
- propman 9y ago
  In 10 years regardless of this agreement flyover country will have more renewable energy jobs than manufacturing jobs lol. Iowa, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Nebraska, North Dakota and Kansas generate 25% of their total energy from just Wind and Texas leads the country in total renewables just from Wind. Yes Texas produces more renewable energy than California. And crazy part, this was almost 90% accomplished in the last 6 years only. These states will turn blue if federal policies harm them. Farms barely surviving put 5 wind turbines on their land and make 50k a year for 30 years. Counties with nothing going for them happen to have the best Wind in the world.
  - dkhenry 9y ago
    I agree, and we will continue to see those jobs grow. I don't see this as us moving away from green jobs and a reduced carbon footprint. This is about us signing away our competitiveness because someone thinks it makes things fair. We will continue to produce more renewable energy and continue to make it more economic. Other countries are free to continue as well, but we shouldn't give them money so they can invest in industries that will attempt to undercut domestic firms in the global marketplace.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- digitalzombie 9y ago
  > Turns out there are lots of Americans in fly over country who disagree. I could throw out statistic too. > Seven out of 10 Americans support remaining in the agreement, according to a national poll conducted by the Yale Program on Climate Communication https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/05/most-americans-support-staying-in-the-paris-agreement/528663/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/05/most-ame...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- minusSeven 9y ago
  But isn't the whole thing non binding in the first place ? Isn't this just supposed to be start so each nation on its know can plan and do it in its own way ?

dkhenry 9y ago

Its bad because its not a level playing field. Its tips the global economy away from Americans because they are too "Developed". Turns out there are lots of Americans in fly over country who disagree.

lelandbatey 9y ago
It is true that they disagree. It is not true that they're lives are definitely harder. For every person in the US, there are four in China. Even imagining that China had the same wealth distribution as the US, which it does not, that still means there are vastly, vastly (at least 4x) more people with lives that are empirically more painful, with less medicine, less availability of electricity, and less food. This isn't because China is doing a bad job, it's because there are a lot of people.
- dkhenry 9y ago
  You are correct that there are many more people in China and that being poor in China is worse then being poor in America, but the solution is not to export global competitiveness to other countries until their quality of living is on par with Americans. Once that ability goes away it will not come back, and as you can tell no one really cares about the plight of rural Americans who stand to be the biggest losers from the change
  - usaar333 9y ago
    No one is talking about giving developing countries a pass until their GDP per capitas are on par with developed nations.. Even with business as usual emissions, China's per capita GDP will maybe be half of what the US's will be in 35 years. I doubt climate mitigation policies would chip away at much of that difference.
ryanobjc 9y ago
The fact is the US polluted the living fuck out of the world to get to it's developed status, and then turns around and says "no you cant do that". So a level playing field already makes no sense. The point of this is to achieve reasonable outcomes, while also allowing developing countries to grow reasonably (and live another billion out of poverty) while helping them with it. If the developed worlds can't afford another $100b, I really don't know what to say? Especially considering a lot of that comes around to contracts and exported goods from the very same developed countries! They're not about to start printing solar cells in a country that is barely feeding itself! As for "fly over country"... I really dont know what to say here. The world doesn't work like the simplistic metaphors that are being peddled to them. For example, the 'government budget is like a family budget' is a nonsensical analogy that is false. Or comparing government debt to credit card debt. These analogies stand in to trick the casual reader in to certain points of view (anti tax and anti government spending ones as it turns out). What to do about this? Well, honestly, outlawing Fox News would probably be a good start.
- dkhenry 9y ago
  You are looking at this from a macro level and completely ignoring the actual repercussions these policy's have. These other countries who you are saying need to "Develop" are not behind the "Developed" countries in any metric other then quality of life statistics. However the policy gives them an advantage in a globally equivalent marketplace. So no it isn't a reasonable outcome to ask a sovereign people to not be able to compete for business fairly simply because on average their citizens have more money then another country.
  - _jal 9y ago
    > These other countries who you are saying need to "Develop" are not behind the "Developed" countries in any metric other then quality of life statistics That little figure happens to be kinda important. In fact, I'll go out on a limb and state that most people consider their quality of life to be somewhat more important than abstract ideas about global economic policy. "Fairness" had nothing to do with how we got here. Or, to flip it around, why would any country (let alone the ones the U.S. has abused for various reasons, artificially retarding their growth) agree to a model that dooms their citizens to a pre-industrial life? This is no different than the arguments for flat taxes because progressive income tax is "unfair".
azernik 9y ago
That's where you and I disagree. The different requirements laid on developing vs. developed countries are in my opinion a feature, not a bug. Demanding from India and and Sub-Saharan Africa to remain pre-industrial nations while we get to keep polluting at a much higher per-capita rate is not in any sense a "level playing field" - it's grandfathering in the advantage we currently gain by polluting more.
- tropo 9y ago
  Yes, it would be "grandfathering in the advantage we currently gain". You don't want that advantage? Are you tired of winning? Trump said: "We gonna win so much you may even get tired of winning and you'll say please, please Mr. president, It's too much winning! We can't take it anymore!" Look, it was a joke. You're expected to like winning. I suppose you could move elsewhere on the non-level playing field if you actually don't like winning. You'd have to make some major lifestyle changes. I bet you do like winning.
  - atonse 9y ago
    Except in this case you aren't winning. We're all losing. The climate isn't just going to be nice on developed nations 20 years from now. It's going to be bad for all nations because we didn't act. We're all losing. Already.
  - azernik 9y ago
    You work so hard on "winning" that you push much more poor and desperate people to the breaking point, you're going to have problems.
propman 9y ago
In 10 years regardless of this agreement flyover country will have more renewable energy jobs than manufacturing jobs lol. Iowa, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Nebraska, North Dakota and Kansas generate 25% of their total energy from just Wind and Texas leads the country in total renewables just from Wind. Yes Texas produces more renewable energy than California. And crazy part, this was almost 90% accomplished in the last 6 years only. These states will turn blue if federal policies harm them. Farms barely surviving put 5 wind turbines on their land and make 50k a year for 30 years. Counties with nothing going for them happen to have the best Wind in the world.
- dkhenry 9y ago
  I agree, and we will continue to see those jobs grow. I don't see this as us moving away from green jobs and a reduced carbon footprint. This is about us signing away our competitiveness because someone thinks it makes things fair. We will continue to produce more renewable energy and continue to make it more economic. Other countries are free to continue as well, but we shouldn't give them money so they can invest in industries that will attempt to undercut domestic firms in the global marketplace.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
digitalzombie 9y ago
> Turns out there are lots of Americans in fly over country who disagree. I could throw out statistic too. > Seven out of 10 Americans support remaining in the agreement, according to a national poll conducted by the Yale Program on Climate Communication https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/05/most-americans-support-staying-in-the-paris-agreement/528663/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/05/most-ame...
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
minusSeven 9y ago
But isn't the whole thing non binding in the first place ? Isn't this just supposed to be start so each nation on its know can plan and do it in its own way ?