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U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

scientificamerican.com

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Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#141

Post by giantg2 »

fbelzile wrote: post #114
VLM wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, you could take the position that not flying in all those politicians to sign the accord (and all the other resources the accord used) would have effectively done more than the accord itself, given that the resulting policies were self-imposed and could have been enacted without the international accord.

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#142

Post by einpoklum »

tootie wrote: post #14
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.

It was barely debated. We can't even get half the country to care about a disaster that's unfolding in their faces.

It's not "half the country". In a recent Fox news (yes, those Fox news...) poll, they found that 72% of people were either "very concerned" or "somewhat concerned" about climate change.

What is true that none of the presidential candidates is taking the crisis seriously: Trump denies it, Biden pays a bit of lip service to it but has done very little about it with Obama, and will probably not do much about it if elected.

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#143

Post by xrmagnum »

sampo wrote: post #115
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/co…

Energy & emissions are complex to account for. I don’t know too much about the US but in France we had quite good results in term of reductions.

But where do they come from? From the optimisation of our energy consumption? Or from the relocation of some of our companies abroad?

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#144

Post by OGWhales »

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

>The risk isn't the US doing nothing, it is India, Africa, etc, etc deciding that they seriously want a comfortable standard of living.

Do you not think it is a responsibility of the already developed nations to solve this crisis first?

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#145

Post by macspoofing »

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.

>4 more years of inaction from the government of one of the biggest polluters in the world will really bite us in the ass.

But that's not the case. America is reducing its emissions greatly by shifting from coal to natural gas (which mirrors what Germany is doing, for example). Coal is ostensibly dead in US. If you look at the charts from Wikipedia [1][2], you'll see the US has cut emissions at about the same rate (or faster) than Europe. That trend will continue. So what will Paris actually do in practical terms?

The problem is that after transitioning away from coal, there isn't a clear answer about the next step. Renewables are not a panacea and may never be able to power a modern economy as they will probably always require fossil fuel baseload ... not to mention that because renewables are a diffuse energy source, they require HUGE land areas which makes no different for CO2 emissions, but makes a huge difference for environmental collapse.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas_emissions_by_th...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas_emissions_by_th...

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#146

Post by UncleMeat »

koheripbal wrote: post #40
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.

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…

> 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.

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#147

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#148

Post by FerretFred »

macspoofing wrote: post #145
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.

>4 more years of inaction from the government of one of the biggest polluters in the world will really bite us in the ass. But that's not the case. America is reducing its emissions greatly by shifting from coal to natural gas (which mirrors what Germany is doing, for example). Coal is ostensibly dead in US. If you look at the charts from Wikipedia [1][2], you'll see the US has cut emissions at about the same rate (o…

>coal to natural gas

Fossil fuel to .. fossil fuel. Sigh.

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#149

Post by Mahn »

op03 wrote: post #63
roenxi wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure. Nature, being unconcerned with fairness, has little regard for per capita statistics. If we want 8 billion people living in comfort, we need more energy. As always, I think we should have been building more nuclear plants back in the 90s. And again in the 2000s. And the 2010s. Maybe now we can go wind and solar. But we need lots of something.

>> If we want 8 billion people living in comfort, we need more energy "We want" is language that hides reality. Who wants this? How many people? As the Trump election (and many other elections around the world) show there is no "we want". Different people want different things. Sweeping that fact under the carpet again and again leads to Paris type meaninglessness. Paris fails because there was never any "we". All th…

"We want" here is a figure of speech. The world doesn't actually care if you don't want other people to live as comfortably as you, because it's gonna happen either way, no country in the world is going to stop pursuing a better quality of life. The real question here is "do we want to figure this out, or do we look the other way".

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#150

Post by OGWhales »

neya wrote: post #124
roenxi wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> The risk isn't the US doing nothing, it is India, Africa, etc, etc deciding that they seriously want a comfortable standard of living. I can't believe that a country wanting to have a "comfortable standard of living" is seen as a "risk". Almost suggesting as if those countries don't deserve them and a comfortable standard of living should be reserved only for a select few countries. I just can't fucking believe wha…

Right? Surely it is the responsibility of the already developed nations to solve this crisis. Putting the blame on developing nations for daring to live the same way we do is... pretty ridiculous.
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