6 ms·
Good lucking getting China to agree.
by young_unixer 6y ago
Good lucking getting China to agree.
- jedimastert 6y agoIt'd have to be economic, like a tariff proportional to the amount of emissions created by producing each good
- bognition 6y agoOne way or another we’re going to have to spend a lot of money to reverse the impact of climate change. Politicians don’t seem to have the stomach for a carbon tax and it’s increasingly looking like we’ll just get tariffs. So instead of explicitly working in the cost of carbon and decreasing spending we’re going to raise prices on everything which will likely have the same impact.
- root_axis 6y agoWhat's your point? China isn't cooperative, so no point in trying to reduce emissions?
- agent008t 6y agoIf the outcome is 'the West' handicapping its economies while China continues its growth and expansion, then will you not end up with a situation decades down the road where we all live in a China-dominant world?
- root_axis 6y agoReducing emissions does not equate to handicapping the economy.
- imtringued 6y agoThere are actually a lot of opportunities for growth if you reduce emission. It's actually funny how in a growth starved world nobody cares about potential growth...
- agent008t 6y agoIf reducing emissions is good for economic growth, then why is government action necessary to enforce it?
- root_axis 6y agoThe nature of the threat posed by our current level of emissions is a time sensitive one. Further, "economic growth" doesn't mean anything at the level of individual companies, if your product necessarily implies high emissions (e.g. coal) then your company will experience the opposite of growth even if the overall growth from the green sector eclipses that loss.
- agent008t 6y agoSuppose we are 100% confident about the threat. Even then, I fear that it is likely that the EU unilaterally cutting emissions - and most likely limiting their own economic growth - will hurt the EU (particularly relative to China) and only have a minor effect on addressing the threat. By economic growth I mean actual overall economic growth. E.g. if in some location, powering something by coal is more cost-efficient than powering it by solar but you convert to solar anyway, you are limiting economic growth. I do get that it may actually make economic sense if you count third-party effects - e.g. that replacing coal with solar makes the area a much nicer place to be, increasing the value of the land. But my point is that if you truly believe that cutting emissions is a road to increasing the wealth of your nation, you should be talking about increasing the wealth of your nation and adopting policies to that end and see emissions decrease as a side-effect. Otherwise, there is a very easy way of reducing emissions - have people emigrate, make them unable to afford housing or afford to have children, shut down manufacturing and other economic activity, destroy infrastructure or allow it to decay. Given that a lot of people, particularly young people, are struggling in many places in Europe and do not see a particularly bright future to put it mildly, and that China is growing at a rapid pace, unilaterally stunting your already barely-there economic growth just comes off as another act of self-flagellation by Europe.
- bildung 6y agoChina actually has more ambitious CO2 targets than many other countries: https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/china/ https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/china/
- ginko 6y agoLooks like the page you linked considers China's climate targets "Highly Insufficient" with the CO2 output mostly staying the same for the next decade.
- oblio 6y agoChina is a country where many people are still living in mud huts or close to it. If they manage to lift those hundreds of millions of people out of poverty AND "just" keep their emissions constant, I consider that as a win for humanity. Everyone else, especially in developed countries, needs to bring their per capita emissions radically down.
- posix_me_less 6y ago> I consider that as a win for humanity. Is it though? How do we people of the Earth now win if it is 2100 and there is 2x more of us and the emissions are the same?
- oblio 6y agoBecause I don't actually think it will work that way. Humans are generally rational and non-starving people even more so. China sees itself as an eternal kingdom, I doubt they plan to boil themselves in this newfound prosperity.
- posix_me_less 6y agoDid anybody plan to breathe polluted air and experience climate change? The more people there is, the harder the impact on the environment.
- simion314 6y agoAt least they are honest enough not to pretend that climate change does not exist. Depending on how you measure the CO2 emissions you could argue that not China is the first one that should take action but the ones that did most of the damage.
- freemint 6y agoI am personally more worried about getting the US to agree. They have the worst carbon emissions per capita by far (twice of world export leading Germany). China set some goals and i heard commentators says that if the same leadership sets a goal China tends to over deliver. Here is the goal:https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/27/china-carbon-pledge-put-energy-system-reverse-wind-solar https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/27/china-ca...