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U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

scientificamerican.com

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Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#211

Post by everdrive »

mola wrote: post #78
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…

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

>You cannot hinder developing countries from the comfort of living in a develop country.

Yes you can. The world's problems are not really personified entities, where hypocrisy is a valid concern. China is a problem.

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#212

Post by zshrdlu »

panpanna wrote: post #4

Question: should countries be able to tax imports from countries with more lax environmental laws? Because that would address the argument about cost and staying competitive.

Does this include the past? Should we "tax" the US and Europe since they've been burning coal and diesel faster than everyone else for more than a century? Should we also favor countries like Kenya, who have burned zero coal historically and are currently some of the greenest countries in the world?

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#214

Post by Proziam »

TehCorwiz wrote: post #94
bamboozled wrote: post #64

I hope I’m wrong but it seems the world may have to leave the United States in the 1950s where it currently plans to reside. Seriously, it’s time counties who want to improve the situation need move on from worrying about what the United sates is doing because it doesn’t look like much will be happening for a long time.

If this were the 50's again we'd have an 84% marginal rate on income over $400,000. Which we would use to fund our infrastructure and energy projects.

I think you're leaving out a super important point. These tax rates didn't affect people making this amount of money. The capital gains tax was 25% at the time, so business owners and investors were not paying 84% tax. If they had been, the oil tycoons of the 50's (basically the entire fortune list) would never have become so wealthy.

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#215

Post by goatinaboat »

abyssin wrote: post #162
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…

Next step is to reduce energy consumption. It's so obvious I wonder why it isn't talked about more. I'm not saying it's easy. We either choose to reduce energy consumption, or the consequences of climate change will force us to do it. The difference is in the first case, we have more control over it, and it might cause less human suffering.

It's so obvious I wonder why it isn't talked about more

But is it obvious? Let's say that fusion becomes commercially viable and vast amounts of emission-free energy become available cheaply. Would reducing the usage of it still matter? I would say the driving factor is the side-effects of energy production by current methods, not the energy itself.

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#216

Post by giantg2 »

trasz wrote: post #186
giantg2 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I highly doubt that. As others have said, China has no plans to reduce pollution until 2030 (negotiated at the accord) and is currently increasing their polluting infrastructure.

Building forty nuclear power plants - which is what China is doing - won’t reduce pollution?

I understand they are still producing coal plants. So the nuclear plants might reduce their trajectory, but overall pollution will still be up if they are producing more coal plants. Hopefully those nuclear plants will be FAST reactors or there could be concerns around the waste management or poor building practices causing pollution too.

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#217

Post by jacobush »

trasz wrote: post #189
m0zg wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You don’t build 40 nuclear power plants if your goal isn’t to reduce pollution.

Traditionally you built 40 nuclear power plants if you wanted plutonium for your atomic bombs.

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#218

Post by ceilingcorner »

The Paris Accord has no teeth and places the West at an economic disadvantage to China, who keeps riding its “developing nation” label to get out of any restrictions. The US is already reducing emissions and has been doing so for years.

If you want to fight climate change, pressure China.

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#219

Post by throwaway5752 »

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…

Renewables are not a panacea and may never be able to power a modern economy as they will probably always require fossil fuel baseload

You say that like it's true, and it's not. Anyway, the climate doesn't care. Human emissions will reach equilibrium with what's compatible with life on Earth, one way or the other. Figuring this out is preferable to massive loss of life and degraded standards of living for the survivors.

I find it particularly telling you exclude nuclear as a baseload and specify it has to be fossil fuel baseload.

Re: U.S. Exits Paris Climate Accord

#220

Post by goatinaboat »

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.

Agreed. It is possible to simultaneously believe "we need to cut emissions" and "the Paris accord is a bad way to do it". But it seems many people think Paris is the only way to do it.

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