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U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

scientificamerican.com

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Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#111

Post by jwr »

roenxi wrote: post #13
originalvichy wrote: post #3

As a European this is the main fear I have during this election. 4 more years of inaction from the government of one of the biggest polluters in the world will really bite us in the ass. Not that I’m super proud of how we are doing in my country, but it can’t get worse.

Here are some interesting graphs from arguably the most transformative economic miracle in human history [0]. The risk isn't the US doing nothing, it is India, Africa, etc, etc deciding that they seriously want a comfortable standard of living. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china?country=~CHN

This is a very harmful, and yet depressingly common answer. "But look at [...finger-pointing here...]" — which "justifies" doing nothing.

So we are doing nothing. And eventually it's going to catch up with us all.

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#112

Post by m0zg »

bamboozled wrote: post #70
m0zg wrote: post #33

Without China (which is a part of the accord, but doesn't have to cut its emissions until 2030, a loophole they're actively using to build insane numbers of coal power plants - whatever their CO2 emissions are in 2030 becomes their "baseline" from which to reduce) this was pretty pointless anyway. Whoever negotiated PCA should not be allowed to negotiate whatever comes after it, because they suck at negotiations. htt…

Why do people want to believe so strongly that China is working so hard to destroy everything they’ve worked so hard to achieve. Maybe they actually do want to reduce pollution ? I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I don’t know if “Wired” would know the full story either. China a pretty difficult place to get information in and out of ?

You don't build coal fired power plants if your goal is to reduce pollution.

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#114

Post by fbelzile »

VLM wrote: post #84
xondono wrote: post #67

Good. The Paris accord is not worth the paper it’s written on. It’s non-biding, it has no enforcement, and the goals where self imposed and for some countries ridiculous. Even if it’s not for the right reasons, the US leaving might force world leaders to actually do something.

It was a big virtue signaling show where nobody involved made any changes. Which some will always see as a huge success because it avoids any need to do anything as long as declarations of support are cheered and awareness is raised and verbal support is given.

Politics is always going to have an element of self-interest. As bad as the agreement is, can't we agree that doing something is better than doing nothing? We can change an existing accord to make it better in a few years, but you can't improve something that doesn't exist.

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#115

Post by sampo »

originalvichy wrote: post #3

As a European this is the main fear I have during this election. 4 more years of inaction from the government of one of the biggest polluters in the world will really bite us in the ass. Not that I’m super proud of how we are doing in my country, but it can’t get worse.

USA per capita CO2 emissions are large, but at least they have been coming down moderately fast. From 2007 to 2017, USA reduced emissions by 20%, whereas if we take Germany as an example of a country with strong "green" element in politics, Germany reduced by 8%.

Apply linear extrapolation, and USA would go below Germany in 20 years. Extrapolating with exponential decay, in 40 years.

https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/united-states?country...

https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/germany?country=~DEU

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#116

Post by toomuchtodo »

swiley wrote: post #108
toomuchtodo wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The definition of comfort is the issue. There are simply not enough resources for everyone on Earth to live like an American. Maybe Europeans if we stretch with renewables and quickly cut down overfishing and stripmining agricultural practices. My money (unfortunately) is on a whole lot of death and despair from crop failures, drought, and mass migrations due to climate change even if we’re able to rapidly decarboniz…

Do you have a source for this? Because last time I checked this wasn't the case.

From a quick Google search: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33133712

More depth can explored using keywords like “global footprint” and “ecological footprint”. What’s your source (“last time I checked”)?

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#117

Post by Cthulhu_ »

nichos wrote: post #93
coffeefirst wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realize Obama didn’t start any wars and spent 8 years trying to close Pandora’s box?

What about Syria? Obama has been at war longer than any president in the history of the country.

The Syrian civil war (if that's what you're referring to) is a result of the Arab Spring that started in 2010 in reaction to low standards of living in Tunisia, which spread to amongst others Syria.

That's the wiki summary anyway, which doesn't directly implicate the US or any particular president.

That said, general unrest in the middle-east can be attributed to meddling from the US that has been going on for decades, from the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, the US funding the Afghans during the Soviet/Afghan war, to the first and second gulf war, the Saudis, etc.

While I don't like Obama's policy when it came to the conflicts down there, he inherited it from decades of policy.

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#118

Post by pfdietz »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #51
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The things you'd need to do to get the world to accept a definition of "comfort" that doesn't include eating meat (vegan definition) several times a week, living and working comfortably climate control buildings and access to a wide array of consumer products would not be pretty to put it mildly. Making people's standards of living go backwards make them shoot you. Holding down people's standards of living makes thei…

You need less people, fundamentally. The total fertility rate is declining across the world luckily (except a handful of countries and Africa) [1], but everyone around now is going to have a rough ride until equilibrium is reached (sometime after 2100). Can’t grow your way out of resource exhaustion (renewables excepted). [1] https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate#country-by-country...

It's declining in Africa also.

https://www.worldometers.info/demographics/demographics-of-a...

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#119

Post by einpoklum »

api wrote: post #100
originalvichy wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like this is a deflection and a critical reason why progress isn’t happening fast enough. Your house is already messy, and the need to clean it up is now. Not when China and a couple billion other people mess their house up. My country’s ambitious plans are shot down by members of parliament going for the kneejern ”but India and China...” response, and the net result would be no action if they were in power. L…

Cleaning up the US would probably mean outsourcing more carbon emissions to the rest of the world. Outsourcing is the primary way the developed world has "cleaned up" so far. The only way we will substantially reduce CO2 emissions is to develop a source of energy that is carbon-free (or incredibly low carbon) and cheaper and easier to deploy than coal and gas . Reductions without that are politically impossible. Ther…

> Cleaning up the US would probably mean outsourcing more carbon emissions to the rest of the world.

That's like saying that cleaning my house means moving the dirt to somebody else's house.

> There is no other way.

That is not true. The other ways are:

1. Reduction of energy use per person.

2. Control of population growth - at the very least, stabilizing the Earth's population and theoretically a reduction.

3. Using Energy sources which are low-carbon, but expensive and/or difficult to deploy.

of course your way makes it a lot _easier_, but since reduction of greenhouse gasses is necessary regardless of the availability of a convenient energy solution, these are also relevant, and gradually are becoming necessary.

By the way - (1.) is already progressing relatively well in lots and lots of countries.

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#120

Post by veeti »

coffeefirst wrote: post #68
eznzt wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main fear I have during this election is that Biden wins, he picks up where Obama left waging wars, and once again they flood Europe with "refugees".

You realize Obama didn’t start any wars and spent 8 years trying to close Pandora’s box?

"Clinton on Qaddafi: We came, we saw, he died."
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