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In 2017, US had largest decline in CO2 emissions
- guitarbill 8y agoBased on a BP study, the US had the "largest decline" of CO2 emissions in 2017, where largest decline is in absolute terms for that period only, not in relative terms.
- acqq 8y agohttps://www.greenpeace.org/usa/global-warming/climate-deniers/front-groups/american-enterprise-institute-aei/ https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/global-warming/climate-denier... “American Enterprise Institute (AEI) has a long track record of distorting the science and solutions of climate change. Its arguments tend to de-emphasize the environmental and economic risks of climate change, exaggerate the costs of addressing the problem and question the value of putting a policy in place at all.” Now they, not surprisingly, intentionally confuse the readers using only the numbers that support their agenda.
- akuji1993 8y agoI don't trust any statistic I haven't faked myself.
- craftyguy 8y agoBP == British Petro? If so, it's in their best interest to always conclude 'nothing to see here, move along' when it comes to pollution/environmental concerns... I would treat such a 'study' with the heavy skepticism it deserves. It's like as if McDonalds had released a study saying that obesity in the US is on the decline.
- jessaustin 8y ago...in the world for 9th time this century That seems an important qualifier? If we try a little harder next year, maybe our reduction will offset EU's increase... we got close this year.
- icebraining 8y agoThe EU increase was a fluke, caused by the drought in Spain, which forced them to compensate the poor hydro production with fossil fuels. But they are already committed to close down the coal plants by the end of next year, increasing solar and wind to compensate. What the US should worry about is its CO2 emissions per capita, which are still 2x the EU's. Quite a way to go.
- jessaustin 8y agoYes the only way we would "catch up" from that perspective would be if Europe were to keep increasing its output, which is unlikely. But really this detail seems unimportant. We're back to 1992 levels, and there is still room for improvement. We'll be perfectly happy never catching up to Europe in this sense.
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago> The EU increase was a fluke, caused by the drought in Spain Drought, fluke? I was of the understanding that longer more severe weather events are predicted by the climate models? So rather than being a fluke isn't this directly caused by unmitigated greenhouse gas emissions?
- icebraining 8y agoFair enough, "fluke" may not be the correct word. What I mean is that it wasn't a permanent increase, but a response to an occasional event (even if those events are expected to become more common).
- gedy 8y ago> What the US should worry about is its CO2 emissions per capita Climate change does not care about "per capita" or where it originates though, only absolute values. So any reduction in absolute terms is valuable
- jcranmer 8y agoDismissing it as a fluke is a bit short-sighted. The EU's problem with its energy policy is that it has often accidentally been regressive in terms of CO₂ emissions. Germany's decision to abandon its nuclear plants provided a sharp rise in emissions, for example, at a time when fracking in the US was causing coal plants to switch to natural gas in droves. The US's emissions are still bad, in absolute, per capita, and per GDP terms. However, the trends are still on a downwards trend, and even the current administration's policies are unlikely to be able to change that. The country to be most concerned about is China, whose emissions are the largest in an absolute sense, and even on a per capita basis are about ½ the US's, and these numbers are on upwards trends.
- keithnz 8y agoFrom the article links, I think the overall emissions are probably the better thing to look at https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/en/corporate/pdf/energy-economics/statistical-review/bp-stats-review-2018-co2-emissions.pdf https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/en/corporate/pdf/energy-ec... seems to show year after year, we keep increasing. Except 2009 ( I wonder if that was because of the fallout of the economic crash in 2008? ) Assuming all the warnings about climate change related to C02 emissions. Seems like we aren't going to be able to turn the ship before it is has a massive impact. My guess is nothing will change until we have some good alternatives to fossil fuel (Nuclear fusion? Awesome battery tech? )
- Brakenshire 8y agoThe rest of the world will fund the technology and scale necessary, then in 10-15 years when renewables plus storage and electric cars are cheaper than the existing technology US Republicans will have a volte-face, deploy at scale, and claim they saved the world through unregulated capitalism. And the rest of the world won’t mind.
- gonvaled 8y agoLet's hope we can put some steep fines on the US for inaction, or other penalties (tariffs in other products / technologies) to recoup those investments, done while the biggest polluter is refusing to take responsibility. The ideal solution would be to tax exporting climate tech to the US, but the world wants a fast adoption of clean technologies, so we need to balance this unfair situation otherwise.
- GLjEI4YbnGD27LB 8y agoDo you have an example of a similar fine on a nation from history that worked?
- frockington 8y agoThe punishment of Germany after WWI is surely the finest of such examples
- bouke 8y agoThere's lies, damned lies and statistics. I think it's very nice that percentage-wise an improvement has been made. However, when looking at the absolute numbers from a different perspective; US 5087M tonnes, 327M inhabitants -> ~15 tonnes/inhabitant EU 4152M tonnes, 511M inhabitants -> ~8 tonnes/inhabitant Seems to me that the US still has a long way to go...
- seltzered_ 8y agoJust a brief melange of twitter links, but worth noting that: Global carbon emissions supposedly increased 1-3% for 2017: https://mobile.twitter.com/i/web/status/930027167689342976 https://mobile.twitter.com/i/web/status/930027167689342976 And US EPA might’ve been underreporting some it’s methane emissions by 60% : https://mobile.twitter.com/chrfield/status/1015373584875728901 https://mobile.twitter.com/chrfield/status/10153735848757289... The US’s emission declines are decreasing due to economic / administration changes - from https://amp.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/limiting-global-warming-to-2-degrees-now-aspirational-scientists-20180604-p4zjeb.html https://amp.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/limiting-g... - “News in recent days that the Trump administration plans to bolster the ailing US coal-fired power industry by intervening in markets would worsen the global emissions picture. The CSIRO's Dr Canadell said while US carbon emissions had fallen for a decade, last year's decline will likely be much smaller because of quickening economic growth at home and abroad.”
- moultano 8y agoProduction creates emissions, not people. A more informative ratio is tons/GDP US 5087M tons, $19.4 trillion GDP -> 262 tons/M$ EU 4152M tonnes, $17.1 trillion GDP -> 242 tons/M$ So still worse, but not as bad as that.
- TheBeardKing 8y agoHigher wealth is no excuse to produce higher emissions, if anything it should be the opposite - those with the wealth should use it to better control all negative externalities.
- xefer 8y agoHow much of this drop is due to the US essentially "exporting" it's emissions? The underlying data is specifically for "emissions from energy". The emissions created during the production of goods imported into the US are not captured here. Manufacturing that has been off-shored would look like a net positive in US emissions, but could actually result in higher world-wide emissions. A better view would be “consumption-based emission inventories” See section III.5 here: https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emis... "... if we switched to a consumption-based reporting system (which corrects for this trade), in 2014 the annual CO2 emissions of many European economies would increase by more than 30% (the UK by 38%; Sweden by 66%; and Belgium's emissions would nearly double); and the USA's emissions would increase by 7%. On the other hand, China's emissions would decrease by 13%; India's by 9%; Russia's by 14% and South Africa by 29%."
- vixen99 8y agoits emissions
- CompelTechnic 8y agoThe year-over-year change in consumption-based emission inventories probably does not deviate enough from the trend in emissions from energy to make a huge change.
- mc32 8y agoThe US would still be the right direction and China and Russia would still be in the wrong direction of the trend.
- tzs 8y agoRussia: yes. China: not so clear. As far as climate goes, what matters is the total amount of CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The amount in the atmosphere is a function of the history of emissions, not just a function of recent emissions. Here's a chart showing cumulative CO2 emissions 1900-2002: https://timeforchange.org/cumulative-co2-emissions-by-country https://timeforchange.org/cumulative-co2-emissions-by-countr... If we were to figure out that total maximum acceptable CO2 in the atmosphere to keep the climate from warming to much, and divvy that up between countries based on nearly any fair allocation method, how much of their quota each country was using would be something like this: 700% US 650% Germany 600% UK 470% Canada 450% Russia 320% France 260% Japan 220% Italy 30% China 12% India One could make a decent case that as long as a country is below 100%, it is OK for it to choose growth and development even though that increases emissions. I believe that this is why most international climate agreements include aid for developing countries. We recognize that even if they put extraordinary effort into it the US, Germany, Russia, etc., would not be able to get down to 100% until long after it was too late, and so we need to convince developing countries to agree to stay well below their fair 100%. But the way a country normally goes from developing to developed is by exploiting cheap, but environmentally unfriendly, resources. It is only after a country becomes a rich, developed, country that it can afford to exploit clean but expensive technology. If we just ask the developing countries to stay well below their fair 100%, we are in effect asking them to stay poor. They are not going to agree to that. Hence, developed countries need to pay to build up developing countries to the point where developing countries can become developed countries without needing to exploit cheap but dirty technology.
- tomp 8y agoThe source is fishy. > The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, known simply as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), is a conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C. > AEI had sent letters to scientists offering $10,000 plus travel expenses and additional payments, asking them to critique the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report.[142] This offer was criticized as bribery. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Enterprise_Institute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Enterprise_Institute
- acheron 8y agoIf you have a problem with the study or methodology, let’s hear it; otherwise, ad hominem attacks don’t add anything to the conversation.
- tomp 8y agoI don't have the required knowledge to form an opinion on the data or methodology, or even on another expert's opinion on those. But I find it hard to trust the untrustworthy. Personally, I would have appreciated if the title included ", claims an organisation that used to bribe scientists". In addition, the title is essentially clickbait, a spin on the data that's convenient for the publisher; as other commenters noted, a large absolute decrease of a really large number is still a small relative decrease; and US is still one of the most per capita polluting countries. I don't want to sound too negative though, I definitely hope the trend continues.
- aldoushuxley001 8y agoShould we have that included in the title of any large agri-tech or bio-tech company then? Monsanto's bribed scientists... Bayer's bribed scientists... etc. etc. Who hasn't bribed a scientist these days? Also, the US is now putting out the least CO2 emissions per capita in decades (since the early 60's). So atleast the US is on the right track, as this article rightfully suggests.
- tomp 8y ago
- noetic_techy 8y agoRegardless of the source, its well known that natural gas and fracking is causing a huge emissions drop. This often flies in the face of peoples cognitive bias on the matter, and it should. Reconcile your "faith" with fact. Many can't except the reality that economic incentives vastly outway any government policy. CO2 emissions wont be solved by more regulations, they will be solved by transitioning our economy to cleaner sources, electric cars, lab grown meats, vertical farms, self driving electric planes, ships, trucks (think about the carbon loss of supporting a human operators. Truck stops go away, restaurants and hotels close, etc). The government would be better suited subsidizing or giving tax breaks to the technology we want to see roll out, or simply get out of the way all together, rather than silly ideas like carbon taxes and onerous regulations that just end up targeting the poorest blue collar workers.
- sandworm101 8y agoAnd all the "blue collar" workers at those hotels and truck stops? Dont assume that everyone supports driverless tech. Many regulations and taxation schemes do effectively protect the blues from the worst behaviors of the white-collared. Dont fall into the trap of thinking that all government is a conspiracy to keep you down. That belief, that a wild west dominated by tech companies can solve all problems, is the stuff of highschool economics papers and Marvel movies. Reality is never that simple.
- imron 8y ago> And all the "blue collar" workers at those hotels and truck stops? Don't worry, universal basic income will save them. /s
- noetic_techy 8y agoThere is a difference between jobs lost from automation and technological advancement, and jobs lost from pointless policy decisions. I don't fall into any traps. I did say some gov subsidy MIGHT be beneficial in order to get technologies that are merely being held back by economies of scale to where they need to be faster. Hardcore libertarians freak at this as well, but I'm a bit more case by case. For example, subsidizing solar panel production until it reaches price parity with natural gas, then start scaling back the subsidy very slowly.
- panzagl 8y agoIt's amazing how commentators here just cannot accept the US as anything other than a source of evil. The US has been doing environmentalism since Europe was busy dividing up Africa.
- gascan 8y agoI think people are just very on guard against oil & gas interests, which represent some of the biggest money in the country and indeed the world.
- mc32 8y agoAt this point I though it would seem farcical, if the US in some alternate universe miraculously achieved zero net carbon emissions, people would come up and say well, the US isn’t doing enough, it’s not importing (subsidizing bad actors and taking their load from them) enough carbon to help carbon emitters come in line.
- ben_w 8y agoUnfortunately, I have seen it suggested that net-zero is no longer sufficient; that the question has, for a while, been “how much damage will there be?” rather than “will there be any damage?” Past emissions are still in the air. I’m not too fussed myself, because I’ve noticed that photovoltaic is growing exponentially — literally exponentially — so we will probably soon have so much spare power we will be trivially able to absorb CO2 from the air and turn into petrol or something.
- dmritard96 8y agoEh, the issue is not thay the US is good/bad whatever but this article frames most dialog on CO2 % change. There are a few issues: C02 is only one greenhouse gas of which others, particularly methane from cow farts, are substabtial contributors to global warming. Americans love their red meat... As absolute numbers, the US per capital contributions to global warming are crazy high. If you integrated over time, the contribution of the US to global warming on a per capita basis since the industrial revolution, it is quite clear the US is an enormous driver of climate change.
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- mrfusion 8y agoHow can we spin this a bit so the skeptics don’t run with this?
- AndyMcConachie 8y agoThis is the American Enterprise Institute quoting a report from British Petroleum. I don't trust anything these people have to say about emissions. They lie too much on the subject.