U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord • Hacker News Board

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#151

Post by _Microft » Wed, Nov 04, 2020, 1:40 PM UTC

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…

Well, after the disaster at Fukushima, we started phasing out nuclear power. It was replaced by renewables. (This was super-stupid since we have a stable government, no enemies close by and basically no natural disasters [0] that would threaten our power plants.) We should have shut down coal plants instead but dwelling on what we should have done does not help. The bright side of this is that our emissions are decreasing despite still running coal plants. Once we shut these down, they will drop even more and this hopefully as early as possible. I hope it is going happen because of economic reasons, i.e. when coal becomes too expensive compared to other sources of energy because that would mean it would already happen before the scheduled phase-out.

[0] If you are from elsewhere in the world, it might be hard to imagine how few threats of natural disasters we have in central Europe: there are basically no earthquakes, no tsunamis, no bush fires, no (real) hurricans (we call them 'storms'), no real tornadoes (it is such a rare thing that it usually makes it to national news if there is one), no (terrible) floods (well, every few decades there is a large flood somewhere here but that's it).

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#152

Post by est31 » Wed, Nov 04, 2020, 1:41 PM UTC

FerretFred wrote: post #148

macspoofing wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

CO2 per KWh is lower for natural gas than it is for coal.

https://www.volker-quaschning.de/datserv/CO2-spez/CO2-spez_e...

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#153

Post by UncleMeat » Wed, Nov 04, 2020, 1:41 PM UTC

dannyw wrote: post #130

mola wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot hinder developing countries from the comfort of living in a develop country. The fact that China agreed to a year is amazing. If the US would have kept part of that deal then maybe we would've seen improvements. But now that the US basically proven to be untrustworthy, even towards allies, these kind of deals are just undoable anymore. This will end in tears

The reality is that production just moved to China. It isn’t better for the planet. It’s a deal that’s been hijacked by business interests; just like the Cali proposition written by Uber that’s “for drivers”. You will never get a hundred countries to voluntarily agree to prioritising climate change over prioritising business interests.

I'd be much more receptive to these "the Paris Agreement wasn't even that strong to begin with" if an alternative was being proposed. But the alternative that the Trump administration is choosing is to attack scientists and deny the problem in the first place.

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#154

Post by Ygg2 » Wed, Nov 04, 2020, 1:42 PM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #103

Ygg2 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So Tesla is being built in China? Non-sequitur. I never said about things US internally makes. Also Tesla makes like 1% of all US cars? But a lot of US imports are from China. And if a large part of those imports became "green", I doubt Chinese authorities would build non-green infra just to spite Americans and/or the World.

You specifically mentioned electric cars in the US, of which Tesla is the largest producer. So this is a valid assumption to make. Do you have any information that would suggest a change in this model, such as GM or Ford sourcing their motors or batteries from China? What examples do you have of green tech exported from China that has found widespread adoption in China?

> You specifically mentioned electric cars in the US, of which Tesla is the largest producer

I said "So if US goes all electric car, China would follow suit, etc."

I didn't say if a single company in US goes electric car, China would follow suit.

I quantified it as "all/most" not "exists".

> What examples do you have of green tech exported from China that has found widespread adoption in China?

Not green tech specifically, but most tech exported from China is also present locally in China.

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#155

Post by macspoofing » Wed, Nov 04, 2020, 1:42 PM UTC

xrmagnum wrote: post #143

sampo wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

>France we had quite good results in term of reductions.

France has the benefit of large-scale nuclear power. Any given day, my home province of Ontario, is at around 85%-95% fossil-fuel-free emissions because of nuclear and hydro [1]. If instead we decided to go with solar and wind, then we'd be waiting until 2060 to cut CO2 emissions and burning much more natural gas until then ... just like Germany.

[1] https://live.gridwatch.ca/home-page.html

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#156

Post by sampo » Wed, Nov 04, 2020, 1:42 PM UTC

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…

> China [...] world's fastest growing CO2 emitter

This is not true. From 2001 to 2011 China almost tripled their emissions, but after 2011 they haven't grown almost at all. It's stable. Maybe you haven't looked at the data in the past 10 years?

https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china?country=~CHN

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#157

Post by refurb » Wed, Nov 04, 2020, 1:43 PM UTC

contravariant wrote: post #92

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.

Although we probably do need to explain why the U.S. requires significantly more energy per person to let people live in comfort compared to European countries.

Take a look at Canada, it's even higher. That should provides clues.

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#158

Post by usrusr » Wed, Nov 04, 2020, 1:43 PM UTC

laurent92 wrote: post #73

koheripbal wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It is also based on the idea that any human deserves the same emissions. Of course, at first level, it is legitimate. However, a country which doesn’t want to pollute should rather choose to keep their population low, through various incentives including cost of life. It would set them back on the economic power, but that may be a choice: Better lifestyle for fewer people. In the current system, however, a country wh…

Unfortunately, with open (or even just somehow permeable) borders, any noticeable delta in lifestyle would just be gobbled up by slow population displacement from shamelessly breeding places. There at no panacea solutions. I envy those born a decade earlier and pity those born a decade later.

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#159

Post by macspoofing » Wed, Nov 04, 2020, 1:44 PM UTC

FerretFred wrote: post #148

macspoofing wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

What do you think Germany is doing? They are going from fossil-fuel-free (nuclear) -> fossil-fuel (Russian natural gas).

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#160

Post by a_humean » Wed, Nov 04, 2020, 1:45 PM UTC

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…

However, Xi Jinping very publicly announced that net zero by 2060 is now a national aim, which is basically what is needed from china on this issue: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54256826

There is a question of follow through as they are still building new coal power plants, but China is making noises that its going commit to changing. The US is not a leader on this issue any more.