Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

All EU Members are committed to achieving full climate neutrality by 2050

ff55.info

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–68 of 68 posts

Re: All EU Members are committed to achieving full climate neutrality by 2050

#61

Post by c00lio »

Etrnl_President wrote: post #57
juujian wrote: post #16

Without specific measures to reduce carbon emissions in a couple of months --- not just offsets, but actual shutdowns of emission sources --- I will not hold my breath that any EU members will actually meet this goal. That is the same as me saying 'I will quite smoking next year.' Just buying time.

Climate lockdowns, they will claim, will do this. They will use the conveniently created lockdown framework with QR and cell-surveillance, to enforce compliance.

Which will accelerate the trend towards far-right governments in europe, who will then roll back climate change laws.

Re: All EU Members are committed to achieving full climate neutrality by 2050

#62

Post by c00lio »

nforgerit wrote: post #32

Not exactly sure what they're thinking and certainly don't want to produce conspiracy theories but with their track record of the past 2 decades of "promising moonshots, not achieving much" and their recent ideas (weakening e2ee, chat control) and actions (e.g. against climate activists), to me it's pointing towards a more repressive state because they already know that they've lost the race against climate change.

I think both groups (climate activists, surveillance-repression fascists) are separate, but the latter welcome the fact that the former gives them an acceptable excuse for more restrictive laws, more control, more surveilance.

Re: All EU Members are committed to achieving full climate neutrality by 2050

#63

Post by c00lio »

tcfhgj wrote: post #22
xaedes wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is estimated that the full electrification of all railway tracks in Germany will be completed not earlier than 2070. But maybe I am confusing "Deutschlandtakt 2070" and the electrification of the tracks.

yeah, you are; however given the zero amount of interest shown on focusing on the train system by the department for mobility, doesn't give much hope it's going to happen before 2070... they want to build more and bigger high ways such that there is less traffic jam, thus less emissions, which is just hilarious.

Problem is, Germany is in a central location in Europe. Lots of east-west and north-south transit going through. That transit has to use the autobahn, for various reasons.

One is the EU: forcing them to use railway loading (such as in Switzerland) isn't possible due to the EU demanding free transit. Making transit on the autobahn prohibitively expensive by fees isn't possible, because the EU can and will veto higher fees or special transit fees. Changing status quo in the EU isn't possible, because all Germany's neighbours will veto.

Second is technical: Railways aren't standardized. Track width changes towards the east. Train station platforms and tunnels are different width and height per country, your load will bump into stuff unless you do lowest-common-size (which is smaller than a normal 20ft/40ft container crosssection, so non-viable). Signaling is different in each and every EU country. Rolling stock for goods transport is usually decades old and doesn't support any of the necessary modern safety standards like ECTS that are used on new tracks and cross-border. So you would have to have huge reloading terminals on each railway track and each border. Or you would have to modernize the railway system across Europe. Huge costs and lack of current demand create a chicken-egg-scenario here. Also, reloading creates delays, which the current just-in-time logistics are allergic to.

Third is domestic: There is also non-transit traffic, where origin or destination is somewhere in Germany. Those will still have to use roads, because the country doesn't have a dense-enough railway network. And building a sufficiently dense one would take forever, if at all possible. New construction is usually extremely expensive, delayed or stopped due to environmental/noise/landmark protection reasons (usually NIMBYs successfully abusing those regs). Only possibility is small extensions, such as "make this road/track/... a little wider", because it is already there which makes arguing against it on the aforementioned grounds harder.

So we maybe will debate if railways ever will take off and then just extend the autobahn. Because there is actually no other choice.

Re: All EU Members are committed to achieving full climate neutrality by 2050

#64

Post by c00lio »

throwme_123 wrote: post #28

Good thing and since it's a world problem, what matters the most is: 1. Also reduce emissions in the US and China[^1], 2. Save the Amazon rainforest in Brazil and SEA mostly[^2]. The best would be to introduce a tax from the CO2 emitters paid to the forest countries if (and only if) they protect them. [^1]: https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/co2_m... [^2]: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/img/bio…

Forest protection alone isn't enough. If you rely on forests, you'd actually have to grow them. Which would conflict with growing human population.

Re: All EU Members are committed to achieving full climate neutrality by 2050

#65

Post by Etrnl_President »

c00lio wrote: post #61
Etrnl_President wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Climate lockdowns, they will claim, will do this. They will use the conveniently created lockdown framework with QR and cell-surveillance, to enforce compliance.

Which will accelerate the trend towards far-right governments in europe, who will then roll back climate change laws.

Far-right and far-left agree on lockdowns, merely the reasoning will change.

Re: All EU Members are committed to achieving full climate neutrality by 2050

#66

Post by tourmalinetaco »

c00lio wrote: post #64
throwme_123 wrote: post #28

Good thing and since it's a world problem, what matters the most is: 1. Also reduce emissions in the US and China[^1], 2. Save the Amazon rainforest in Brazil and SEA mostly[^2]. The best would be to introduce a tax from the CO2 emitters paid to the forest countries if (and only if) they protect them. [^1]: https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/co2_m... [^2]: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/img/bio…

Forest protection alone isn't enough. If you rely on forests, you'd actually have to grow them. Which would conflict with growing human population.

If the forests want to grow, they will do so themselves thank you very much.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2021/12/09/...

Re: All EU Members are committed to achieving full climate neutrality by 2050

#67

Post by tourmalinetaco »

lm28469 wrote: post #56
billti wrote: post #27

Unless China and India cut emissions drastically it’s a drop in the ocean. There should be tariffs on the biggest emitters to the point where they can’t afford to NOT cut emissions if they want to trade good and services.

Then take back all the polluting industries you off shored to China because otherwise you can say good bye to 50-70% of the things around you

And that’s the key here. It’s easy to meet “climate goals” when you offshore production to countries with zero pollution laws.

Re: All EU Members are committed to achieving full climate neutrality by 2050

#68

Post by c00lio »

tourmalinetaco wrote: post #66
c00lio wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forest protection alone isn't enough. If you rely on forests, you'd actually have to grow them. Which would conflict with growing human population.

If the forests want to grow, they will do so themselves thank you very much. https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2021/12/09/...

There are no tropical forests in the EU. And German forests do only grow by increasing biomass of older trees, new saplings are completely eaten away by deer if not actively protected.
Post reply on HN