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> The paper lists the top 10 polluting plants... unsurprisingly many of them are in China and India And China isn't slowing down. Coal is incredibly cheap when

> The paper lists the top 10 polluting plants... unsurprisingly many of them are in China and India And China isn't slowing down. Coal is incredibly cheap when there's no carbon tax or emission standards. One of the many reasons it's cheaper to manufacture in China and why North Americans and Europeans can't compete. Time to add tariffs on goods produced by states who made the decision of going all-in on polluting power generation, and potentially apply immigration quotas to citizens of these countries.

joecool1029 5y ago
We should look at countries like Australia, they are among the worst with no reason to be. China has a still growing economy and while they continue to bring coal online they are the world's leading solar producer and have heavy investment into bringing more nuclear online. Contrast this with Australia that is a fully developed economy, has the easiest location to install and generate solar, has tons of uranium in the ground that it doesn't have a single reactor to use, and still burns and ships coal to act as an enabler to other coal burning nations.
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  > they are the world's leading solar producer and have heavy investment into bringing more nuclear online. And yet their emissions are growing at an out of control pace [0]. [0] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/26/us-leads-greenhouse-gas-emissions-on-a-per-capita-basis-report-finds.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/26/us-leads-greenhouse-gas-emis...
  - justicezyx 5y ago
    It's leveling off. And it's still well below Japan in per capita emission. Japan is quite an advanced green economy. I don't think any reason to put China front and center in this discussion "who should start closing coal power plant". Edit: > Focusing on per-capita data inevitably leads to whataboutism Well, energy usage is a key indicator of human wellbeing. I see no reason this leads to whataboutism. It's a key part of the discussion. Without this, humans are not going to unit in full strength. > that's exactly the narrative the CCP wants to push! CCP lifted 600MM+ people out of poverty. I guess they can make a few correct statement, right? > But when looking at emissions over time, it becomes pretty obvious that some countries are working hard doing their parts while some others are simply polluting at an accelerating pace. Yes, we can clearly see that China committed to carbon neutral at the critical juncture of economy development [1], and the only large developing country. And we are waiting India [2]. Meanwhile, despite enjoying the most from the carbon emission industry in 20 century, the advanced & developed country continuously insist on equal responsibility for all nations. It's like I eat most of the lunch, and grow so big, now I say that everyone on the table should cut their food consumption by certain percentage... Not fair. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/energyinnovation/2021/03/08/chinas-carbon-neutral-opportunity-economic-growth-driven-by-ambitious-climate-action/?sh=4cb8b80e734d https://www.forbes.com/sites/energyinnovation/2021/03/08/chi... [2] https://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/climate-change/is-india-in-a-position-to-announce-a-target-of-net-zero-emissions-by-2050--76377#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20third%20Biennial,reduce%20the%20emission%20intensity%20of https://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/climate-change/is-india-...
    - 908B64B197 5y ago
      > And it's still well below Japan in per capita emission For how long? > I don't think any reason to put China front and center in this discussion "who should start closing coal power plant". Focusing on per-capita data inevitably leads to whataboutism, and that's exactly the narrative the CCP wants to push! But when looking at emissions over time, it becomes pretty obvious that some countries are working hard doing their parts while some others are simply polluting at an accelerating pace.
    - joecool1029 5y ago
      >And it's still well below Japan in per capita emission. I upvoted you but I didn't dunk on Japan because they do have nuclear energy and are a resource poor nation. They are also the only nation to have legitimate concerns over nuclear technology for reasons I shouldn't have to explain. >Meanwhile, despite enjoying the most from the carbon emission industry in 20 century, the advanced & developed country continuously insist on equal responsibility for all nations. This is the core point! I'm making the case that there's a reason they are emitting lots of carbon right now, and unlike many other nations that don't have a reason nor a plan to get off carbon, they do have one. China was practically an agrarian society up until the 1980's, the west squandered a 200 year carbon-burning head start and is painting them as the bad guys.
  - joecool1029 5y ago
    Sure, but China doesn't appear to be short-sighted. In 10 years will this be the case? Nuclear takes a long time to bring online, they've at least got the process in motion and reasons to be polluting right now. Polluters like Australia don't and that's my point. Or maybe it'd be better that China stops producing renewable technologies for the rest of the world? One big area I see them improving is with use of electric vehicles. Can't do EV's if your grid can't supply the energy. Should they push gas and diesel vehicles instead for the next decade or two?
    - throwaway894345 5y ago
      > Or maybe it'd be better that China stops producing renewable technologies for the rest of the world? I don't understand the dichotomy here. Is the argument that China's production of solar panels is a primary driver of China's pollution and thus cutting pollution in China would significantly hamper their ability to produce PV for the world? That seems dubious to me if I understand it correctly?
      - joecool1029 5y ago
        >I don't understand the dichotomy here. Let's make it easy then: Without coal as a large % of base load they'd have to shut down a good amount of their manufacturing and focus on putting less EV's on the road until they could replace the base load lost from shutting off all their coal production. China is #10 on the list of natural gas reserves, far below what the US or Russia has. At their current consumption they are anticipated to run out in a little over 20 years. I do not think it is a viable strategy to throw tons of natural gas online and rely on Russia when it runs out. Literally nothing the Chinese do with energy policy right now will appease the west. If they put in more hydro for wind/PV storage western press would print headlines about how the big bad CCP flooded over some villages and are destroying their environment.
        krrrh 5y ago
        > Literally nothing the Chinese do with energy policy right now will appease the west. Serious development and commercialization of small modular nuclear reactors as an alternative to coal would probably do the trick.
- likeabbas 5y ago
  It would be more beneficial to the world to reign in the heaviest polluters first and then go after the remaining polluters.
- albatross13 5y ago
  > China has a still growing economy No matter how many UN councils vote to agree on this, we both know it's not true.
nextaccountic 5y ago
> And China isn't slowing down. Coal is incredibly cheap when there's no carbon tax or emission standards. One of the many reasons it's cheaper to manufacture in China and why North Americans and Europeans can't compete. I thought that Trump was all about building more coal? Didn't it work out?
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  It didn't. It maybe slowed down decommission of existing power plants, but nobody would build a coal power plant today from scratch in the west. These things last for a generation, while an administration 8 years at most.
vkou 5y ago
> Time to add tariffs on goods produced by states who made the decision of going all-in on polluting power generation, and potentially apply immigration quotas to citizens of these countries. Sure, let's have a tariff on goods made in a country, that scales proportionately to the per-capita CO2 emissions in it. The United States would be one of the most heavily tariffed countries in the world, if we go down that road. China would be... Middle of the pack.
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  > Sure, let's have a tariff on goods made in a country, that scales proportionately to the per-capita CO2 emissions in it. Again the obsession over per capita data, which totally obscure the fact that the US per capita emissions have been in a constant decline over the last 20 years while China's have been growing at an uncontrolled pace. Which behavior should we incentivize, unrestrained pollution because they "aren't THE worst yet" or hard work curbing emissions?
  - vkou 5y ago
    A constant decline when they started at an incredibly high starting point still puts it at much worse than other countries. I don't care about 'trying' or 'trends'. I care about current results. That's the behaviour we should incentivize. Results. Not 'projected results maybe 20 years from now.' Oh, and by the way, China's per-capita emissions peaked in ~2013, and have been ~slowly declining since then. [1] If current trends continue without any change, it's going to take another 24 years for the US to hit their level of emissions. [2] It's odd that whenever people grouse about China's emissions, they never make note of either of those two facts... [1] https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china [2] https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/united-states https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/united-states
    - 908B64B197 5y ago
      The link you shared shows: - Decreasing per capita emissions in the US starting in 1973 (-27%) - A decrease in the countries emission starting in 2007 (-13%) Meanwhile for the same period China has had - a 7x increase per capita since 1973 (+532%) - 48% increase for its global emissions since 2007 Clearly one is not like the other! One of them achieved significant results.
danenania 5y ago
I understand the case for tariffs or even sanctions (though western nations should obviously get their own houses in order first), but how would immigration quotas make any difference? Do governments care at all where their citizens are allowed to emigrate to? I don’t see why they would.
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  Rich Chinese are obsessed with acquiring western passports. Making it harder will incentivize them to work harder at home to fix their country's horrible environmental record.
  - danenania 5y ago
    The CCP might see that as a favor to them if it prevents brain drain?
  - bagacrap 5y ago
    quotas seen much more likely to affect the non rich
baron_harkonnen 5y ago
> Time to add tariffs If you do that then the price of Solar PV will skyrocket back up. The key reason we've seen Solar PV prices plummet is because we've seen an increasing amount of manufacturing move to China, now 80% of solar PV are manufactured their. It takes a tremendous amount of resources and energy to make solar pv and the only way to do it cheaply is to do it someplace that doesn't mind burning lots of coal to extract and process the necessary resources to build them. Though to be fair, high tariffs that reduced Chinese production would hurt the global economy, which is the only demonstrated method we've seen to reduce emissions. This could be the best path way to improving emissions, but I suspect many people would be unhappy with consequences.
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  A lot of the talk of China seems just to be racism, but as long as we're talking about carbon-based tariffs then they're good for everyone, including China to be subject to them. They can introduce carbon pricing internally and use the solar they make to decarbonize the solar production, win-win-win.
throwawayboise 5y ago
Yep with the worst offenders being in countries that don't care, not a lot that can be done unless you feel it's worth going to war over (I don't think it is).
throwaway894345 5y ago
> Time to add tariffs on goods produced by states who made the decision of going all-in on polluting power generation This is why I think a carbon tax with border adjustment would be pretty awesome. The border adjustment is the bit that levels the economic playing field between polluting and clean countries.
bcrosby95 5y ago
> Time to add tariffs on goods produced by states who made the decision of going all-in on polluting power generation, Seems like it might make sense to me. > and potentially apply immigration quotas to citizens of these countries. Um, what does this have to do with solving the problem at hand?

joecool1029 5y ago

We should look at countries like Australia, they are among the worst with no reason to be. China has a still growing economy and while they continue to bring coal online they are the world's leading solar producer and have heavy investment into bringing more nuclear online. Contrast this with Australia that is a fully developed economy, has the easiest location to install and generate solar, has tons of uranium in the ground that it doesn't have a single reactor to use, and still burns and ships coal to act as an enabler to other coal burning nations.

908B64B197 5y ago
> they are the world's leading solar producer and have heavy investment into bringing more nuclear online. And yet their emissions are growing at an out of control pace [0]. [0] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/26/us-leads-greenhouse-gas-emissions-on-a-per-capita-basis-report-finds.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/26/us-leads-greenhouse-gas-emis...
- justicezyx 5y ago
  It's leveling off. And it's still well below Japan in per capita emission. Japan is quite an advanced green economy. I don't think any reason to put China front and center in this discussion "who should start closing coal power plant". Edit: > Focusing on per-capita data inevitably leads to whataboutism Well, energy usage is a key indicator of human wellbeing. I see no reason this leads to whataboutism. It's a key part of the discussion. Without this, humans are not going to unit in full strength. > that's exactly the narrative the CCP wants to push! CCP lifted 600MM+ people out of poverty. I guess they can make a few correct statement, right? > But when looking at emissions over time, it becomes pretty obvious that some countries are working hard doing their parts while some others are simply polluting at an accelerating pace. Yes, we can clearly see that China committed to carbon neutral at the critical juncture of economy development [1], and the only large developing country. And we are waiting India [2]. Meanwhile, despite enjoying the most from the carbon emission industry in 20 century, the advanced & developed country continuously insist on equal responsibility for all nations. It's like I eat most of the lunch, and grow so big, now I say that everyone on the table should cut their food consumption by certain percentage... Not fair. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/energyinnovation/2021/03/08/chinas-carbon-neutral-opportunity-economic-growth-driven-by-ambitious-climate-action/?sh=4cb8b80e734d https://www.forbes.com/sites/energyinnovation/2021/03/08/chi... [2] https://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/climate-change/is-india-in-a-position-to-announce-a-target-of-net-zero-emissions-by-2050--76377#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20third%20Biennial,reduce%20the%20emission%20intensity%20of https://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/climate-change/is-india-...
  - 908B64B197 5y ago
    > And it's still well below Japan in per capita emission For how long? > I don't think any reason to put China front and center in this discussion "who should start closing coal power plant". Focusing on per-capita data inevitably leads to whataboutism, and that's exactly the narrative the CCP wants to push! But when looking at emissions over time, it becomes pretty obvious that some countries are working hard doing their parts while some others are simply polluting at an accelerating pace.
  - joecool1029 5y ago
    >And it's still well below Japan in per capita emission. I upvoted you but I didn't dunk on Japan because they do have nuclear energy and are a resource poor nation. They are also the only nation to have legitimate concerns over nuclear technology for reasons I shouldn't have to explain. >Meanwhile, despite enjoying the most from the carbon emission industry in 20 century, the advanced & developed country continuously insist on equal responsibility for all nations. This is the core point! I'm making the case that there's a reason they are emitting lots of carbon right now, and unlike many other nations that don't have a reason nor a plan to get off carbon, they do have one. China was practically an agrarian society up until the 1980's, the west squandered a 200 year carbon-burning head start and is painting them as the bad guys.
- joecool1029 5y ago
  Sure, but China doesn't appear to be short-sighted. In 10 years will this be the case? Nuclear takes a long time to bring online, they've at least got the process in motion and reasons to be polluting right now. Polluters like Australia don't and that's my point. Or maybe it'd be better that China stops producing renewable technologies for the rest of the world? One big area I see them improving is with use of electric vehicles. Can't do EV's if your grid can't supply the energy. Should they push gas and diesel vehicles instead for the next decade or two?
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    > Or maybe it'd be better that China stops producing renewable technologies for the rest of the world? I don't understand the dichotomy here. Is the argument that China's production of solar panels is a primary driver of China's pollution and thus cutting pollution in China would significantly hamper their ability to produce PV for the world? That seems dubious to me if I understand it correctly?
    - joecool1029 5y ago
      >I don't understand the dichotomy here. Let's make it easy then: Without coal as a large % of base load they'd have to shut down a good amount of their manufacturing and focus on putting less EV's on the road until they could replace the base load lost from shutting off all their coal production. China is #10 on the list of natural gas reserves, far below what the US or Russia has. At their current consumption they are anticipated to run out in a little over 20 years. I do not think it is a viable strategy to throw tons of natural gas online and rely on Russia when it runs out. Literally nothing the Chinese do with energy policy right now will appease the west. If they put in more hydro for wind/PV storage western press would print headlines about how the big bad CCP flooded over some villages and are destroying their environment.
      - krrrh 5y ago
        > Literally nothing the Chinese do with energy policy right now will appease the west. Serious development and commercialization of small modular nuclear reactors as an alternative to coal would probably do the trick.
likeabbas 5y ago
It would be more beneficial to the world to reign in the heaviest polluters first and then go after the remaining polluters.
albatross13 5y ago
> China has a still growing economy No matter how many UN councils vote to agree on this, we both know it's not true.

nextaccountic 5y ago

> And China isn't slowing down. Coal is incredibly cheap when there's no carbon tax or emission standards. One of the many reasons it's cheaper to manufacture in China and why North Americans and Europeans can't compete. I thought that Trump was all about building more coal? Didn't it work out?

908B64B197 5y ago
It didn't. It maybe slowed down decommission of existing power plants, but nobody would build a coal power plant today from scratch in the west. These things last for a generation, while an administration 8 years at most.

vkou 5y ago

> Time to add tariffs on goods produced by states who made the decision of going all-in on polluting power generation, and potentially apply immigration quotas to citizens of these countries. Sure, let's have a tariff on goods made in a country, that scales proportionately to the per-capita CO2 emissions in it. The United States would be one of the most heavily tariffed countries in the world, if we go down that road. China would be... Middle of the pack.

908B64B197 5y ago
> Sure, let's have a tariff on goods made in a country, that scales proportionately to the per-capita CO2 emissions in it. Again the obsession over per capita data, which totally obscure the fact that the US per capita emissions have been in a constant decline over the last 20 years while China's have been growing at an uncontrolled pace. Which behavior should we incentivize, unrestrained pollution because they "aren't THE worst yet" or hard work curbing emissions?
- vkou 5y ago
  A constant decline when they started at an incredibly high starting point still puts it at much worse than other countries. I don't care about 'trying' or 'trends'. I care about current results. That's the behaviour we should incentivize. Results. Not 'projected results maybe 20 years from now.' Oh, and by the way, China's per-capita emissions peaked in ~2013, and have been ~slowly declining since then. [1] If current trends continue without any change, it's going to take another 24 years for the US to hit their level of emissions. [2] It's odd that whenever people grouse about China's emissions, they never make note of either of those two facts... [1] https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china [2] https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/united-states https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/united-states
  - 908B64B197 5y ago
    The link you shared shows: - Decreasing per capita emissions in the US starting in 1973 (-27%) - A decrease in the countries emission starting in 2007 (-13%) Meanwhile for the same period China has had - a 7x increase per capita since 1973 (+532%) - 48% increase for its global emissions since 2007 Clearly one is not like the other! One of them achieved significant results.

danenania 5y ago

I understand the case for tariffs or even sanctions (though western nations should obviously get their own houses in order first), but how would immigration quotas make any difference? Do governments care at all where their citizens are allowed to emigrate to? I don’t see why they would.

908B64B197 5y ago
Rich Chinese are obsessed with acquiring western passports. Making it harder will incentivize them to work harder at home to fix their country's horrible environmental record.
- danenania 5y ago
  The CCP might see that as a favor to them if it prevents brain drain?
- bagacrap 5y ago
  quotas seen much more likely to affect the non rich

baron_harkonnen 5y ago

> Time to add tariffs If you do that then the price of Solar PV will skyrocket back up. The key reason we've seen Solar PV prices plummet is because we've seen an increasing amount of manufacturing move to China, now 80% of solar PV are manufactured their. It takes a tremendous amount of resources and energy to make solar pv and the only way to do it cheaply is to do it someplace that doesn't mind burning lots of coal to extract and process the necessary resources to build them. Though to be fair, high tariffs that reduced Chinese production would hurt the global economy, which is the only demonstrated method we've seen to reduce emissions. This could be the best path way to improving emissions, but I suspect many people would be unhappy with consequences.

ZeroGravitas 5y ago
A lot of the talk of China seems just to be racism, but as long as we're talking about carbon-based tariffs then they're good for everyone, including China to be subject to them. They can introduce carbon pricing internally and use the solar they make to decarbonize the solar production, win-win-win.

throwawayboise 5y ago

Yep with the worst offenders being in countries that don't care, not a lot that can be done unless you feel it's worth going to war over (I don't think it is).

throwaway894345 5y ago

> Time to add tariffs on goods produced by states who made the decision of going all-in on polluting power generation This is why I think a carbon tax with border adjustment would be pretty awesome. The border adjustment is the bit that levels the economic playing field between polluting and clean countries.

bcrosby95 5y ago

> Time to add tariffs on goods produced by states who made the decision of going all-in on polluting power generation, Seems like it might make sense to me. > and potentially apply immigration quotas to citizens of these countries. Um, what does this have to do with solving the problem at hand?