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The biggest issue with the Paris Accords is that China did not commit to begin any restrictions until 2030. ...and since they are both the world's largest CO2

The biggest issue with the Paris Accords is that China did not commit to begin any restrictions until 2030. ...and since they are both the world's largest CO2 emitter and world's fastest growing CO2 emitter, the Accords became a corporate strategy to just move more manufacturing to China (and other non-limited countries). Frankly, I think the Paris Accords does more harm than good by giving anyone the notion that we were solving the problem. The optimal strategy to combat Global Warming is to bring manufacturing back to the EU and US and regulate emissions strongly.

laurent92 6y ago
It is also based on the idea that any human deserves the same emissions. Of course, at first level, it is legitimate. However, a country which doesn’t want to pollute should rather choose to keep their population low, through various incentives including cost of life. It would set them back on the economic power, but that may be a choice: Better lifestyle for fewer people. In the current system, however, a country who keeps their population low will have small allowances; It clearly incentives overpopulating its land. This inverse-incentive effect may provoke countries into doing nothing against evergrowing population, keeping cost of life too affordable, and thus, ensuring that the next generation will be overpopulated, and thus, extenuating the land.
- usrusr 6y ago
  Unfortunately, with open (or even just somehow permeable) borders, any noticeable delta in lifestyle would just be gobbled up by slow population displacement from shamelessly breeding places. There at no panacea solutions. I envy those born a decade earlier and pity those born a decade later.
mola 6y ago
You cannot hinder developing countries from the comfort of living in a develop country. The fact that China agreed to a year is amazing. If the US would have kept part of that deal then maybe we would've seen improvements. But now that the US basically proven to be untrustworthy, even towards allies, these kind of deals are just undoable anymore. This will end in tears
- dannyw 6y ago
  The reality is that production just moved to China. It isn’t better for the planet. It’s a deal that’s been hijacked by business interests; just like the Cali proposition written by Uber that’s “for drivers”. You will never get a hundred countries to voluntarily agree to prioritising climate change over prioritising business interests.
  - UncleMeat 6y ago
    I'd be much more receptive to these "the Paris Agreement wasn't even that strong to begin with" if an alternative was being proposed. But the alternative that the Trump administration is choosing is to attack scientists and deny the problem in the first place.
- the-pigeon 6y ago
  Why exactly? China has shown time and time again that China will do what China feels like doing. Meaning them committing to doing something 10 years doesn't mean they will do it at all. We clearly don't really care about climate change or stuff like this would be about taxing pollution through tariffs and other means. Rules like this just move the manufacturing and thus pollution to different countries. Which is pointless when the goal is to reduce climate change.
  - oblio 6y ago
    I know this would have sounded absurd a few years ago, but the authoritarian Chinese regime is currently more rational than the democratic US regime. They actually know, understand, and to some degree care, that they're basically 1/5th of the world's population and if they don't get pollution under control the entire world will burn.
    - ceilingcorner 6y ago
      The CCP has absolutely zero problem suppressing its own citizens if they threaten the government’s power, I seriously doubt they care any more about the rest of the world.
UncleMeat 6y ago
> The optimal strategy to combat Global Warming is to bring manufacturing back to the EU and US and regulate emissions strongly. But how? The manufacturing that went overseas did so for cost reasons. If you make it even more expensive then there is even less incentive to have it here. Dismantling the economies of the east from afar is not an option for a ton of reasons.
sampo 6y ago
> China [...] world's fastest growing CO2 emitter This is not true. From 2001 to 2011 China almost tripled their emissions, but after 2011 they haven't grown almost at all. It's stable. Maybe you haven't looked at the data in the past 10 years? https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china?country=~CHN https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china?country=~CHN
- apexalpha 6y ago
  Plus, to be fair, they make all our stuff. Or at least a lot of it. So a big part of their CO2 is YOUR stuff being made.
  - chuckSu 6y ago
    Yup
  - TearsInTheRain 6y ago
    I dont know if it is funny or sad to see that whenever the US passes an environmental or labor regulation there is no net reduction in bad behavior, the bad behavior just gets moved to a different country and we burn a little more oil to move it there
a_humean 6y ago
However, Xi Jinping very publicly announced that net zero by 2060 is now a national aim, which is basically what is needed from china on this issue: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54256826 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54256826 There is a question of follow through as they are still building new coal power plants, but China is making noises that its going commit to changing. The US is not a leader on this issue any more.
- mikechen233 6y ago
  All the new plants Chinese government approve to build now are super critical coal plants. These are the most efficient ones. The gov also regulated older coal plants to retrofit NOx, SOx, pm2.5 treatment equipments. China doesn't have much oil and natural gas but has a lot of coal. So for energy security at the present moment they kinda have to still use coal. They already import lots of oil for transportation and industrial use. But at least they are doing something to reduce coal impact which I think is better than nothing. The air quality issue is known to every Chinese person now, so the government has a lot pressure to improve it. The gov also have good strategies to drive solar adoption. Like if farmers to build solar panels in their farm fields they get tax breaks and they earn money from selling to the grid. And with the price of solar and electricity rate, it's a profitable business. So far it's being working. Solar installation is growing year by year. The gov also pushed to build a few extreme high voltage DC transmission line from the west to the east to transit the renewables generated in that region to the east where energy is demanded. The China National Nuclear Corporation has a mandate to research and build new nuclear technologies. It's now building a number of gen 3 nuclear reactors and they are researching gen 4. A number of electric car companies are taking off in China. Big Chinese cities are already clogged by ICE cars. To buy a car you need to take a lottery for licence plates. In these cities they have separate lottery group for new energy vehicles, which includes hybrid and pure electric vehicles. The gov is now giving equal quota for both groups or more for NEVs. So a lot of people are buying NEVs just because the lottery line is shorter. These people probably won't consider a NEVs before. But companies like Tesla and nio is making great cars too and that is driving demand as well. Some cities are also transition public utility vehicles like buses to electric. Also the high speed rail system and subway system also has major environmental benefits. HSR moved 2.35 billion people in 2019. I think thats amazing. Thats 2.36 billion trips on electric transportation, and not on cars and airplanes. So without the massive investments and foresight to build the HSR, there will be more cars clogging the environment and oil used.
trasz 6y ago
China is building nuclear power plants like crazy: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/china-build-40-nuclear-power-plants-over-next-five-years-a6795401.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/china-build-4.... So, in a few years things should look much better there.
- ballenf 6y ago
  Maybe that will inspire a similar approach elsewhere. Hopefully they don't have any safety lapses that threaten nuclear elsewhere. Not saying there's any reason to expect meltdowns, just that it wouldn't take much to undermine the public's faith in the technology.
goatinaboat 6y ago
The optimal strategy to combat Global Warming is to bring manufacturing back to the EU and US and regulate emissions strongly. Agreed. It is possible to simultaneously believe "we need to cut emissions" and "the Paris accord is a bad way to do it". But it seems many people think Paris is the only way to do it.
- freeflight 6y ago
  > But it seems many people think Paris is the only way to do it. The issue is rather that nobody really brings up any valid alternatives when they disagree with Paris. Saying "bring manufacturing back" is not an valid alternative, it's wishful thinking that ignores how this current situation came about, while offering zero actual actionable advise how to reverse that development and fix the problem itself. Manufacturing went to China because of laxer regulations there making it more cost-effective, how are you gonna convince it to come back to the US and EU with even harsher regulations?
  - goatinaboat 6y ago
    Manufacturing went to China because of laxer regulations there making it more cost-effective, how are you gonna convince it to come back to the US and EU with even harsher regulations? Easy. Tariffs on Chinese imports so its cheaper to manufacture cleanly back home.
    - freeflight 6y ago
      > Tariffs on Chinese imports If that works at all, it only works in disincentivizing manufacturing in China. That doesn't bring manufacturing "back home", it only brings it to other countries similar or even lower in standards as China, are you gonna tariff those too?
      - goatinaboat 6y ago
        are you gonna tariff those too? Err, yes, obviously. There aren't an infinite number of countries in the world. You could quite comfortably track all the countries that do and do not comply with Western environmental laws in Excel. Or declare a free trade area the conditions of entry to which are compliance. This is a very very easy problem to solve... once we wean ourselves off the cheap tat China produces.
xster 6y ago
> China did not commit to begin any restrictions until 2030 Is this factual? They committed to peaking in 2030. Stopping at the stop sign is a radically different concept from starting to brake at the stop sign.

laurent92 6y ago

It is also based on the idea that any human deserves the same emissions. Of course, at first level, it is legitimate. However, a country which doesn’t want to pollute should rather choose to keep their population low, through various incentives including cost of life. It would set them back on the economic power, but that may be a choice: Better lifestyle for fewer people. In the current system, however, a country who keeps their population low will have small allowances; It clearly incentives overpopulating its land. This inverse-incentive effect may provoke countries into doing nothing against evergrowing population, keeping cost of life too affordable, and thus, ensuring that the next generation will be overpopulated, and thus, extenuating the land.

usrusr 6y ago
Unfortunately, with open (or even just somehow permeable) borders, any noticeable delta in lifestyle would just be gobbled up by slow population displacement from shamelessly breeding places. There at no panacea solutions. I envy those born a decade earlier and pity those born a decade later.

mola 6y ago

You cannot hinder developing countries from the comfort of living in a develop country. The fact that China agreed to a year is amazing. If the US would have kept part of that deal then maybe we would've seen improvements. But now that the US basically proven to be untrustworthy, even towards allies, these kind of deals are just undoable anymore. This will end in tears

dannyw 6y ago
The reality is that production just moved to China. It isn’t better for the planet. It’s a deal that’s been hijacked by business interests; just like the Cali proposition written by Uber that’s “for drivers”. You will never get a hundred countries to voluntarily agree to prioritising climate change over prioritising business interests.
- UncleMeat 6y ago
  I'd be much more receptive to these "the Paris Agreement wasn't even that strong to begin with" if an alternative was being proposed. But the alternative that the Trump administration is choosing is to attack scientists and deny the problem in the first place.
the-pigeon 6y ago
Why exactly? China has shown time and time again that China will do what China feels like doing. Meaning them committing to doing something 10 years doesn't mean they will do it at all. We clearly don't really care about climate change or stuff like this would be about taxing pollution through tariffs and other means. Rules like this just move the manufacturing and thus pollution to different countries. Which is pointless when the goal is to reduce climate change.
- oblio 6y ago
  I know this would have sounded absurd a few years ago, but the authoritarian Chinese regime is currently more rational than the democratic US regime. They actually know, understand, and to some degree care, that they're basically 1/5th of the world's population and if they don't get pollution under control the entire world will burn.
  - ceilingcorner 6y ago
    The CCP has absolutely zero problem suppressing its own citizens if they threaten the government’s power, I seriously doubt they care any more about the rest of the world.

UncleMeat 6y ago

> The optimal strategy to combat Global Warming is to bring manufacturing back to the EU and US and regulate emissions strongly. But how? The manufacturing that went overseas did so for cost reasons. If you make it even more expensive then there is even less incentive to have it here. Dismantling the economies of the east from afar is not an option for a ton of reasons.

sampo 6y ago

> China [...] world's fastest growing CO2 emitter This is not true. From 2001 to 2011 China almost tripled their emissions, but after 2011 they haven't grown almost at all. It's stable. Maybe you haven't looked at the data in the past 10 years? https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china?country=~CHN https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china?country=~CHN

apexalpha 6y ago
Plus, to be fair, they make all our stuff. Or at least a lot of it. So a big part of their CO2 is YOUR stuff being made.
- chuckSu 6y ago
  Yup
- TearsInTheRain 6y ago
  I dont know if it is funny or sad to see that whenever the US passes an environmental or labor regulation there is no net reduction in bad behavior, the bad behavior just gets moved to a different country and we burn a little more oil to move it there

a_humean 6y ago

However, Xi Jinping very publicly announced that net zero by 2060 is now a national aim, which is basically what is needed from china on this issue: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54256826 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54256826 There is a question of follow through as they are still building new coal power plants, but China is making noises that its going commit to changing. The US is not a leader on this issue any more.

mikechen233 6y ago
All the new plants Chinese government approve to build now are super critical coal plants. These are the most efficient ones. The gov also regulated older coal plants to retrofit NOx, SOx, pm2.5 treatment equipments. China doesn't have much oil and natural gas but has a lot of coal. So for energy security at the present moment they kinda have to still use coal. They already import lots of oil for transportation and industrial use. But at least they are doing something to reduce coal impact which I think is better than nothing. The air quality issue is known to every Chinese person now, so the government has a lot pressure to improve it. The gov also have good strategies to drive solar adoption. Like if farmers to build solar panels in their farm fields they get tax breaks and they earn money from selling to the grid. And with the price of solar and electricity rate, it's a profitable business. So far it's being working. Solar installation is growing year by year. The gov also pushed to build a few extreme high voltage DC transmission line from the west to the east to transit the renewables generated in that region to the east where energy is demanded. The China National Nuclear Corporation has a mandate to research and build new nuclear technologies. It's now building a number of gen 3 nuclear reactors and they are researching gen 4. A number of electric car companies are taking off in China. Big Chinese cities are already clogged by ICE cars. To buy a car you need to take a lottery for licence plates. In these cities they have separate lottery group for new energy vehicles, which includes hybrid and pure electric vehicles. The gov is now giving equal quota for both groups or more for NEVs. So a lot of people are buying NEVs just because the lottery line is shorter. These people probably won't consider a NEVs before. But companies like Tesla and nio is making great cars too and that is driving demand as well. Some cities are also transition public utility vehicles like buses to electric. Also the high speed rail system and subway system also has major environmental benefits. HSR moved 2.35 billion people in 2019. I think thats amazing. Thats 2.36 billion trips on electric transportation, and not on cars and airplanes. So without the massive investments and foresight to build the HSR, there will be more cars clogging the environment and oil used.

trasz 6y ago

China is building nuclear power plants like crazy: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/china-build-40-nuclear-power-plants-over-next-five-years-a6795401.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/china-build-4.... So, in a few years things should look much better there.

ballenf 6y ago
Maybe that will inspire a similar approach elsewhere. Hopefully they don't have any safety lapses that threaten nuclear elsewhere. Not saying there's any reason to expect meltdowns, just that it wouldn't take much to undermine the public's faith in the technology.

goatinaboat 6y ago

The optimal strategy to combat Global Warming is to bring manufacturing back to the EU and US and regulate emissions strongly. Agreed. It is possible to simultaneously believe "we need to cut emissions" and "the Paris accord is a bad way to do it". But it seems many people think Paris is the only way to do it.

freeflight 6y ago
> But it seems many people think Paris is the only way to do it. The issue is rather that nobody really brings up any valid alternatives when they disagree with Paris. Saying "bring manufacturing back" is not an valid alternative, it's wishful thinking that ignores how this current situation came about, while offering zero actual actionable advise how to reverse that development and fix the problem itself. Manufacturing went to China because of laxer regulations there making it more cost-effective, how are you gonna convince it to come back to the US and EU with even harsher regulations?
- goatinaboat 6y ago
  Manufacturing went to China because of laxer regulations there making it more cost-effective, how are you gonna convince it to come back to the US and EU with even harsher regulations? Easy. Tariffs on Chinese imports so its cheaper to manufacture cleanly back home.
  - freeflight 6y ago
    > Tariffs on Chinese imports If that works at all, it only works in disincentivizing manufacturing in China. That doesn't bring manufacturing "back home", it only brings it to other countries similar or even lower in standards as China, are you gonna tariff those too?
    - goatinaboat 6y ago
      are you gonna tariff those too? Err, yes, obviously. There aren't an infinite number of countries in the world. You could quite comfortably track all the countries that do and do not comply with Western environmental laws in Excel. Or declare a free trade area the conditions of entry to which are compliance. This is a very very easy problem to solve... once we wean ourselves off the cheap tat China produces.

xster 6y ago

> China did not commit to begin any restrictions until 2030 Is this factual? They committed to peaking in 2030. Stopping at the stop sign is a radically different concept from starting to brake at the stop sign.