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China is on track to beat its peak-emissions pledge

arstechnica.com

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Re: China is on track to beat its peak-emissions pledge

#11

Post by dragonelite »

Aperocky wrote: post #7
YippRino wrote: post #2

I'd like to be proven wrong here but I tend to suspect them of fudging their numbers, so to speak. There is a lot of corruption at the municipal level and there is incentive for local officials to overstate their progress. That said, pollution is pretty serious in their bigger cities so I hope for everyone's sake the numbers are true.

I think number fudging goes on all the time, China probably a little bit worse, but then in the end the number has to come from somewhere. It's easy to fudge a single year worth of data but then it gets progressively harder. So while we should take all numbers with a grain of salt, the long term number will eventually reflect reality.

Those pm2.5 number can be easily verified by others,just googled on pm2.5 sensors and they cost like 20~50 euros. So i image there's probably a whole community of pollution watchers in China given the health risks associated with air pollution. And the local governments probably don't want more green protests marches.

Re: China is on track to beat its peak-emissions pledge

#13

Post by ei8htyfi5e »

I've lived there and can say from experience China just makes stuff up. The local governments are responsible for reporting to higher ups and they don't want to miss targets, so they straight up lie. In reality it's a house of cards. You can lie about a 2% change once, and twice, and three times, but soon your lies compound and it's clear you didn't reduce emissions by the rate you reported. Only time will prove me correct about this. They do this with air quality regularly. Chinese official numbers of PM2.5 are regularly 30-50% lower than what the US embassy reports.

Re: China is on track to beat its peak-emissions pledge

#14

Post by smacktoward »

ei8htyfi5e wrote: post #13

I've lived there and can say from experience China just makes stuff up. The local governments are responsible for reporting to higher ups and they don't want to miss targets, so they straight up lie. In reality it's a house of cards. You can lie about a 2% change once, and twice, and three times, but soon your lies compound and it's clear you didn't reduce emissions by the rate you reported. Only time will prove me c…

I don’t know why you’re getting downvoted on this, it’s a common problem in authoritarian governments of all stripes. Nobody gets promoted from Apparatchik to Senior Apparatchik by pushing back on the quotas set for them.

Re: China is on track to beat its peak-emissions pledge

#15

Post by Fellshard »

dragonelite wrote: post #11
Aperocky wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think number fudging goes on all the time, China probably a little bit worse, but then in the end the number has to come from somewhere. It's easy to fudge a single year worth of data but then it gets progressively harder. So while we should take all numbers with a grain of salt, the long term number will eventually reflect reality.

Those pm2.5 number can be easily verified by others,just googled on pm2.5 sensors and they cost like 20~50 euros. So i image there's probably a whole community of pollution watchers in China given the health risks associated with air pollution. And the local governments probably don't want more green protests marches.

This hilariously overstates how incentivized individual citizens are to protest, when I would expect the exact opposite given how the Chinese state operates.

Re: China is on track to beat its peak-emissions pledge

#16

Post by Dirlewanger »

smacktoward wrote: post #14
ei8htyfi5e wrote: post #13

I've lived there and can say from experience China just makes stuff up. The local governments are responsible for reporting to higher ups and they don't want to miss targets, so they straight up lie. In reality it's a house of cards. You can lie about a 2% change once, and twice, and three times, but soon your lies compound and it's clear you didn't reduce emissions by the rate you reported. Only time will prove me c…

I don’t know why you’re getting downvoted on this, it’s a common problem in authoritarian governments of all stripes. Nobody gets promoted from Apparatchik to Senior Apparatchik by pushing back on the quotas set for them.

It's hard for people to accept the fact that modern Chinese society is rotten to the core. You don't hear people describing China as "the government's horrible, but the people are nice", you hear "the government's horrible, and so are the people". I've heard this from a lot of exasperated Chinese expats.

Re: China is on track to beat its peak-emissions pledge

#17

Post by simion314 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #6
simion314 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it easy to fake the numbers this days where you can automate a lot of the measurements?

Yes, you just put a fan in front of your pollution sensors.

I think satellites are used this days, balloons too

Re: China is on track to beat its peak-emissions pledge

#18

Post by smallgovt »

Dirlewanger wrote: post #16
smacktoward wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know why you’re getting downvoted on this, it’s a common problem in authoritarian governments of all stripes. Nobody gets promoted from Apparatchik to Senior Apparatchik by pushing back on the quotas set for them.

It's hard for people to accept the fact that modern Chinese society is rotten to the core. You don't hear people describing China as "the government's horrible, but the people are nice", you hear "the government's horrible, and so are the people". I've heard this from a lot of exasperated Chinese expats.

Your idea will get more traction if you describe the behavior as rotten to the core instead of the person. After all, you are projecting your value system onto another set of people who have different values. Neither of your value systems are true.

Re: China is on track to beat its peak-emissions pledge

#19

Post by yorwba »

Fellshard wrote: post #15
dragonelite wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those pm2.5 number can be easily verified by others,just googled on pm2.5 sensors and they cost like 20~50 euros. So i image there's probably a whole community of pollution watchers in China given the health risks associated with air pollution. And the local governments probably don't want more green protests marches.

This hilariously overstates how incentivized individual citizens are to protest, when I would expect the exact opposite given how the Chinese state operates.

Individual citizens aren't incentivized to lead a protest (because that will get them arrested), but they're incentivized to participate in a protest while avoiding arrest, because that's usually effective to extract concessions from the government who want to avoid a repeat of the Tiananmen protests.

E.g. most recently in Wuhan against a trash incinerator plant too close to a residential area: "At first the Xinzhou district government attempted to calm the unrest. It issued a statement last Wednesday denying that work had started on the incinerator. It said the project hadn't even been registered, nor had it gone through any environmental assessment." https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-48904350

Re: China is on track to beat its peak-emissions pledge

#20

Post by ClumsyPilot »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #8
alex_duf wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think China is doing more for renewable energy than any other country combined. Bar maybe India. They are building solar panel, wind turbines at a frantic pace, pushing really hard for electrification because of said pollution. Yes they are still building new coal stations, yes atrocious things are happening there, but renewable energy? China is the reason it's so cheap

This is a one-sided hot-take. China is not the only reason it's so cheap. If you look at the history of solar and wind energy, the USA and Europe were absolutely crucial in innovation and cost cutting for the first few doublings of production. For instance, Germany was the biggest early-adopter of solar. Furthermore, the US has time and again been the innovators on the research-front, though we are ceding that ground…

The fact remains that currently, china is investing more in renewables than the rest of the world combined.

You are right, Europe and US pioneered the industry, but that makes the fact that they are currently fiddling while Rome burns even more damning.

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