7 ms·
Sigh, I wish the USA were not leaving the Paris Agreement.
by chunkyslink 7y ago
Sigh, I wish the USA were not leaving the Paris Agreement.
- rapnie 7y agoAren't there a bunch of states and cities who still intend to keep pace with the Paris accord?
- Mountain_Skies 7y agoMany cities have pledged to behold future city administrations to changes that the current administrations themselves will not be responsible for implementing.
- koheripbal 7y agoImportantly, those cities aren't significant emitters. It is easy to promise little to no change.
- DrAwdeOccarim 7y agoWe need to do something serious greenhouse emissions and gases already in the atmosphere. I was also bummed hearing about Trump pulling us out of the Paris accord, but the lack of inclusion of China and other major greenhouse emitters makes the agreement dangerous. Maybe his 8d chess will actually get us something good where the next president can remove the tariffs in exchange for greenhouse gas controls?
- NeedMoreTea 7y agoHow do you figure that? https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/06/china-vows-commit-paris-climate-accord-170601092431302.html https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/06/china-vows-commit-par...
- makomk 7y agoThere is a vast difference between what China promises to do and what it actually does. For example, it's repeatedly committed to stop massively subsidising its steel and aluminium production and driving everyone else out of business, but has not done so whatsoever. (One of the less widely appreciated results of that is that China's plants produce much more CO2 than the ones they're driving out of business, due to less efficient processes and dirtier power sources.) Climate change is similar - they may have committed to reducing their emissions, but in reality what we've seen is a massive build-out of coal power and heating.
- NeedMoreTea 7y agoThere is a vast difference between what the entire fucking world promised at Paris and what they have actually done since. Only the EU seems to have certain intent to move toward neutrality and their efforts have, at best, been intermittent and inconsistent. Meanwhile the West keeps sending more business, more manufacturing and more recycling to China - they are, in no small part, merely moving the accounting of the West's emissions. Of course they are also a developing country - it's not realistic for them to do that entirely sustainably without Western subsidy - an idea not discussed seriously since probably Rio in the early 90s, when there was briefly talk of an intent to help the developing world fast-track right past our dirty phase of development. China have been inconsistent about coal too. So have some countries in the best performing bloc, the EU. Notably The Netherlands, Poland and Germany.
- nradov 7y agoYou're not wrong, but from a political standpoint it's impossible to justify giving any sort of subsidies to China as long as they're pursuing an expansionist foreign policy and have nuclear missiles pointed at us.
- jngreenlee 7y ago"Everything before the "but" is meant to be ignored by the speaker; and everything after the "but" should be ignored by the listener." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- swebs 7y agoYet the actual results have been disappointing. China's carbon emissions have only continued to increase since 2016, whereas most other countries have been decreasing emissions. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/World_fossil_carbon_dioxide_emissions_six_top_countries_and_confederations.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/World_fo...
- LessDmesg 7y agoChinese government doesn't beleive in the climate alarmism religion. That's why China will become the world's biggest economy while the bankrupt Western governments chase oil and car companies and drive their countries into greenie paradise with horse carriages and windmills.
- swebs 7y ago>but the lack of inclusion of China and other major greenhouse emitters makes the agreement dangerous You may be thinking of the Kyoto protocol, which did exempt "developing" countries like China and India (which I agree is very flawed). The Paris agreement includes China though.
- koheripbal 7y agoChina's Paris commitments were significantly laxer than other nations. Commiting only to stop increasing only by 2030.
- bamboozled 7y agoIt's better than nothing but I thought the current thinking is that the Paris agreement isn't enough anyway?
- koheripbal 7y agoDistractions are often worse than nothing.
- rb808 7y agoThe Paris Agreement is a joke. Most countries just signed it then did what they wanted any way. Yes it would be better PR if US signed it and ignored it, but it wouldn't make any difference. https://www.nature.com/news/prove-paris-was-more-than-paper-promises-1.22378 https://www.nature.com/news/prove-paris-was-more-than-paper-...
- big_chungus 7y agoThe Paris Agreement is a joke also because there was no universal obligation it imposed. Consider, for instance, the promise China made to stop increasing emissions by 2030. You read that right, _stop increasing_. Not reduce at all. Also, that's about when economists figured emissions would naturally stop increasing in any case. A bunch of nations got together, asked everyone to send in a promise, stapled them all together, and called it a "climate accord".
- MR4D 7y agoIf the press paid attention to this, I think we'd have a chance at an agreement that did something. Instead, it's like a participation trophy for politicians.
- lucian1900 7y agoAnd yet somehow China is beating everyone else https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-climatechange-carbon/china-meets-2020-carbon-target-ahead-of-schedule-xinhua-idUSKBN1H312U https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-climatechange-carbo... Funny how even a partially planned economy is more effective.
- koheripbal 7y agoEveryone's emissions are down due to manufacturing slowdowns globally. If you're willing to select a narrow set of data points as this article does, then you can draw any conclusion you want.
- sproketboy 7y agoThey're ahead of schedule but The U.S. Leads All Countries In Reducing Carbon Emissions https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2017/10/24/yes-the-u-s-leads-all-countries-in-reducing-carbon-emissions/#13912bb53535 https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2017/10/24/yes-the-u-s-...
- remotecool 7y agoWe can still produce less carbon emissions without being in the agreement. The US is only 20% of total C02 output. Even if it were 0, China and India are still ruining the climate and the Paris accords didn't stop this. Per-capita doesn't matter. Reality doesn't care about fairness.
- Avamander 7y agoPer-land area US is still one of the largest polluters.
- ekianjo 7y agoThat's irrelevant, what matters is absolute production per country, because of politics.
- lazysheepherd 7y agoMake slightly more relevant with your personal stance then. Because it is very much relevant.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y agoSo, the solution to the climate crisis is to split the US into 50 separate countries then? I mean, they could still cooperate in some sort of federation, united in their common goals, some sort of union of states or something, but without the climate impact!
- lazysheepherd 7y agoWhether US may or may not reduce emissions is completely irrelevant. There's an accord, and US is out. Period. It's a prisoner's dilemma[0] instance we are all in, so finger-pointing does not help with anything, for anyone. Furthermore, countries you point very lightly make up almost half the world population. And their emissions per capita are laughably low(especially India) compared to US. 1: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/prisoners-dilemma.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/prisoners-dilemma.asp
- 7y ago
- m0zg 7y agoFun fact: between 2005 and 2017 the US carbon emissions fell 12.4% on an absolute basis and 19.9% on per-capita basis. The reductions continued under the Trump administration which would suggest that they are economically sensible in their own right. In 2017 we emitted about as much carbon as we did in 1990. That's not perfect: the EU now emits 19% less CO2 than it emitted in 1990, but that's a heck of a lot better than China which now emits twice as much CO2 as the US does, and which was exempt from some of the more aggressive parts of the agreement until 2030 (and isn't at all on track to comply even then). The whole thing was idiotic for the US to sign, irrespective of what you think of climate change: it has no teeth whatsoever against by far the largest polluter, and therefore it's not worth the paper it's written on, and it would not move the needle one iota. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=40094 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=40094