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Obama Presses China On Global Warming
HughPickens.com writes: The NY Times reports that President Obama spoke at the United Nations Climate Change Summit and challenged China to make the same effort to reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions and join a worldwide campaign to curb global warming. Obama's words were directly focused on putting the onus on China, an essential partner of the U.S. if a global climate treaty is to be negotiated by 2015. The U.S. and China bear a "special responsibility to lead," said Obama. "That's what big nations have to do." The U.S., Obama said, would meet a pledge to reduce its carbon emissions by 17 percent, from 2005 levels, by 2020 — a goal that is in large part expected to be met through proposed EPA regulation.
There were indications that China might be ready with its own plan, although many experts say they will be skeptical until Chinese officials reveal the details. A senior Chinese official said his country would try to reach a peak level of carbon emissions "as early as possible." This suggests the Chinese government, struggling with air pollution so extreme that it has threatened economic growth, regularly kept millions of children indoors and ignited street protests, was determined to show faster progress in curbing emissions. In recent years, the Chinese government has sent other signals about addressing carbon pollution, some of them encouraging to environmental experts. "Five years ago, it was almost unimaginable to discuss China putting a cap on carbon, but now that is happening," said Lo Sze Ping, chief executive officer of the World Wildlife Fund's office in Beijing. "Chinese leaders have seen that it is imperative to move toward a low-carbon economy."
There were indications that China might be ready with its own plan, although many experts say they will be skeptical until Chinese officials reveal the details. A senior Chinese official said his country would try to reach a peak level of carbon emissions "as early as possible." This suggests the Chinese government, struggling with air pollution so extreme that it has threatened economic growth, regularly kept millions of children indoors and ignited street protests, was determined to show faster progress in curbing emissions. In recent years, the Chinese government has sent other signals about addressing carbon pollution, some of them encouraging to environmental experts. "Five years ago, it was almost unimaginable to discuss China putting a cap on carbon, but now that is happening," said Lo Sze Ping, chief executive officer of the World Wildlife Fund's office in Beijing. "Chinese leaders have seen that it is imperative to move toward a low-carbon economy."
Remember the Kyoto protocol?
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The US consumes 1.6KW of power per person. China consumes 0.4KW.
An average US person consumes 4x more power than a Chinese person. The US ought to cut its fuel and power consumption before snubbing other nations.
I mean it seriously, we need to think about what kind of world we leave for our children.
There is global warming, leading to more chaotic and extreme weather patterns. There is also pollution in general/
I currently live in Hong Kong. In general that is a great experience but there are days when lots of smog comes from the Shenzen area. I first thought it was fog, that is how bad it can be.
We should all do an effort, on country, company and personal level to make this world more livable for our children.
The traffic here in India in metro cities is horrible. Average speed has reduced to 8-10 kmph. Imagine the amount of fuel wasted, hence the demand, hene the driving up of petrol prices.
If we could extract maximum efficiency from our cars or electric vehicles actually became usable (afforable and practical), we would end our dependence on petrol.
15-20 year old diesel buses and dilapidated trucks ply on our roads making for a choking cocktail for pedestrians.
I'm definitely pro-environment but it's dishonest to blame China, who uses 4-5 times less energy per-head than the US, for developing itself.
We got a free ride to modernisation without caring about the environment so how are we supposed to convince China to sacrifice development rate for it?
If we want to do something about the environment we can start telling Westerners that one car per household is plenty, that you don't need to wrap every good in 20 sheets of plastic and that you can live happy and healthy with less material possessions.
Let's see Obama say that to the world!
...when will American auto makers get the message and build a car that gets better than 60mpg? (easily done with a 1.3 litre engine, impossible with a 6 litre whatever fucking jet engine thing, and there is NO NED for 6 litres in a car that's made for a market with a 55mph national speed limit!). I say China is doing damn well with small-engine hybrids etc, even considering they're importing them by the shipload from Korea and Japan. Obama's got no room to talk. Maybe he should get back to adding another layer of depleted uranium to the Iraqi desert.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
America:Signatory country with no intention to ratify the treaty, with no binding targets
China: Developing countries without binding targets
Developing countries do not have binding targets under the Kyoto Protocol, but are still committed under the treaty to reduce their emissions. the US not only refuses binding targets, but actively refuses to ratify the treaty. in other words, we signed it but we just dont give a fuck.
theres been a worldwide campaign to curb global warming since 1997 that america has ignored for more than a decade. Its about-face holier-than-thou shit like this makes america irrelevant as anything other than a periodic nuisance to other countries legitimately trying to address global challenges in the 21st century. 83 countries are already on this america. You missed the bus, not them.
Good people go to bed earlier.
...until the politicians like Obama, Democrats, and Republicans flog the lobby groups out of Washington and actually curb our need for buying and sending out junk back to places like China while taking steps to eliminate our own uses of oil, coal, etc for something cleaner en mass like we do oil and such right now with government incentives.
Well now, that's a President who's getting it done (i.e., by asking/demanding/challenging somebody else to do something).
And that really puts the pressure on China. I mean, it's not like they can ignore a Presidential challenge. (/sarc)
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
While Western nations (certainly not just the US, but also almost all of Europe) have reached a democratic impasse in which very little changes, China seems able to reflect on changes internally and externally, and develop drastic new regulations when necessary. It can self-correct. I could give a long explanation why this is true, but Eric Li explained it a lot better in a TEDx presentation. It's 20 minutes, but very relevant when comparing governments of China and US (and other Western countries).
https://www.ted.com/talks/eric...
I would not be surprised if China adopts its own pollution and climate regulations that are beneficial for the country, where benefit can include anything they think is relevant: e.g. health, economy. And it might be that these are more strict than we have here, or not. Time will tell. But they will decide on their own terms. Don't forget that China has to import a lot of fossil fuels, while it has most (all?) resources needed to produce sustainable energy production (solar/wind), and they also already have the factories within their borders. There may be a large economic incentive too.
I see Obama's challenge only as an excuse for the USA's lack of action.
China has major smog problems and I'm not sure what color the Yellow River is, but I'd drink cat piss before drinking from the Yellow River.
Tending to the environment helps everyone, which is why the US and Europe don't have acid rain problems like in the 1990s.
No one benefits from polluted air or toxic water, China has made great strides in the last 20 years and they have the resources to raise their own state of affairs for the human condition in their country by cleaning up a bit. A fair amount of it would probably be easy since, as examples, Europe and the USA know how to do it.
[Unless you are looking for a political griefing thread, which this being the internet, isn't exactly uncommon.]
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
on illegal invasions into the Middle East. The U.S is killing and murdering in the Middle East, yet this clown Obama is moralizing over China's smog.
The US consumes 1.6KW of power per person. China consumes 0.4KW.
An average US person consumes 4x more power than a Chinese person. The US ought to cut its fuel and power consumption before snubbing other nations.
Never mind the fact how overpopulated China is and that most people live in a 6X6 room. Sure. I am so ashamed.
Here is the transcript of President Obama's speech on climate at the UN: http://insideclimatenews.org/b... I think this is the anchor paragraph:
"So today, I call on all major economies to do the same [declare emissions targets and implementation policies]. For I believe, in the words of Dr. King, that there is such a thing as being too late. And for the sake of future generations, our generation must move toward a global compact to confront a changing climate while we still can."
Threatening China with Dr. King may be even more potent than moving to impose carbon tariffs on their imports. http://news.slashdot.org/story... The legitimacy of China's government is threatened by Dr. King's philosophy.
The age-old problem persists, however, in that it is difficult to muster the political will in an individual nation if the measure of negative economic impact is greater than nil.
You can blame the system for creating disincentives toward pollution control, but it boils down to educating the populace. Unfortunately there is just enough denier science out there to keep citizens with short attention spans occupied.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Wouldn't it be nice if the US used the same energy levels as China as a first step?
Here are the stats from 2011:
United States: 7,032
China : 2,029
Hi China, on a per capita basis we consume three times as much energy as you do, but can you cut down on your usage please?
Obama expects everyone to go along with him because he appears incapable of seeing other points of view. I voted for him. I apologize to you for that.
Over the decades we have outsourced our most hazardous production to other nations such as China since in the US complying with our strict labor and environmental safety regulations makes it very expensive, and some industries probably can't be clean or safe enough to be legal. But now we stand at our clean and smog-free shores and pat ourselves on the back while pointing at the very nations we shipped our hazardous production to and accuse them of being unsafe and dirty.
Reminds of the scene from Game of Thrones when Joffrey says his mother has told him that a king should not strike a woman, then he orders Ser Meryn to hit Sansa. Meryn immediately obeys the command without hesitation or concern for the young lady. The US is Joffrey, Ser Meryn is China, Sansa is Mother Nature, and we are all hypocrites.
The President causually picks up the phone, "Hey Ping! My man! Michelle asked you're havin burnt chicken and rice tonight. Cool. How did she know? From the stench blowing through the backyard. Ya, I know, if they didn't complain, what would they talk about? Cool dude, I'll calm her down. HEY MICHELLE! PING SAYS HE'LL CLOSE HIS WINDOW. That ping, what a character."
There was absolutely no planning and no real work behind this.
Reduction resulted mainly from economic crash in 2008, and resulting lower production (=lower emissions). Kyoto goal has been reached by accident, not intentionally, and not in a stable way. When economy picks up and production increases, emissions will go back to previous levels.
Accidentally meeting Kyoto requirement is NOT the same as actively working on it.
Boasting this "achievement" is more like saying "he is a good guy, because today he did not hit his wife as he always does."
Geez, this guy is not going to be happy till the US and its economy is run 101% into the ground and we're on a 2nd or 3rd world level.
WTF would we cut our emissions at the cost of our manufacturing and economy unless China or other offenders do it first? China is running roughshod over us and he's wanting to voluntarily cripple the US more at this critical time?
Obama is not a friend or champion of the US, more and more I'm starting to believe the extremists that said his goal was to dismantle the US as we knew it, and I am starting to fear they are right when I see his actions or lack thereof on important issues.
I can't figure out if it is ignorance, or if it is actual actions due to malicious forethought.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
"... China, stop manufacturing cheap shits that we want to buy. Our citizens have great appetite for buying local for 2-10x the cost."
With all the wrong models, manipulated temperatures, falsifying of facts, how can anyone take this seriously? Really, all the info is out there. The same people that claim it's "science" don't want a thing to do with the facts in the matter. If you are such a patron of science then why would you accept stats that are micro managed and manipulated to get an outcome worse then what the facts show? Look up how the "97%" figure is really reached. Look up how temperatures are manipulated. Really, it's become beyond the level of religious zealotry as people now a days can ever admit they are wrong. They try to link everything to climate change, even earth quakes as if we have a bunch of idiots that would even think the two could even be closely related. Reality, history and SCIENCE tell us that they are not even closely related other then an earthquake does have an effect on the environment of the areas they occur in.
No, I did not write that.
I wrote that accidentally meeting Kyoto requirements due to economy crash is not the intention of the protocol. Intention is a continued, ongoing, planned reduction down to the goals over multiple years.
USA didn't care about Kyoto protocol and did not introduce a program that would continuously work towards that goal. It still doesn't have plan, and did not change their approach after accidentally meeting the goals.
It's like comparing two sportsmen.
One is training and keeps getting better results. He will continue to get good results in coming years.
The other neglects everything, but in one competition, by accident, he reached the same result as the first one. Sadly he is not training, and this was just a one-off performance without any stable background.
Most of that pollution comes from factories, not from ordinary people using electricity.
If you can understand that a factory is the main cause of pollution, then you can understand how you can have a small number of people creating most of the pollution.
Merely looking at per capita is pointless.
It's easy, just stop shipping US and Canadian coal, oil, and LNG to China.
Period.
Everything else is sound and fury, signifying nothing but hot air.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
The entire "man made global warming" fear propaganda agenda/campaign was brought to you directly by the international bankers so they can tax you for your "carbon footprint".
As usual, The Rothchilds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdqNds9pNuI are the ones behind this hugely profitable money making scheme.
So you stupid motherfucking sheep fall for the bait again. Let me translate the headline in plain terms everyone can understand:
"Rothchild international banking sydicate and their banking partners presses china on global warming because they are one of the few countries left that we can't tell what to do"
... that have eyes painted on them so they look alert when really they nodded off hours ago.
If you want to get china's attention... you're going to need to apply some sort of export/import tax that relates to carbon debt. Short of that... china shall snooze through your presentation.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
We need to reduce our footprint by ~5% a year to keep have a 66% chance of staying below 2 degrees C of 3.6 degrees F of global warming.
Population growth is about 75 million people a year - like the population of Germany. We need to build a sustainable Germany every year just to break even!
But let's end with good news ... The Rockefellers announced they will divest over $600 million from fossil fuels, citing the moral imperative.
China has active nuclear technology development program, and roadmap. They even this year announced plan to join India in aggressively pursuing thorium reactors (millennia of energy supply) That's more than the USA has for true zero carbon emission alternative energy goals that can actually drive a civilization and progress forward. The energy-stupid USA should just shut up and get the hell out of the way of these smarter countries.
Subject sez it all (politically incorrectly).
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
Wouldn't China still use coal if they are not being hired to do the labor work?
Indeed this turns out to be a pot calling kettle session
While America is busy with all the fracking activities it is accusing China with pollution
Why so much fracking in USA then? To extract water? To clean up the environment?
Goddamned motherfuckers from USA better stop polluting the earth themselves before they accuse others of doing the same!
A question for everyone who thinks that CO2 controls the climate. How long with rising CO2 and flat or falling temperatures before you admit your theory is wrong? 20 years? 30? Never?
All 5 of the major datasets (RSS, UAH, HadCRUT4, GISS, NCDC) show no warming for between 14 and almost 18 years. In that time CO2 has risen 8-10%.
Here are 2 predictions. First I predict that CO2 will continue to increase because China and other countries don't care about CO2. They don't even care about real pollutants much less CO2. Second I predict it will get colder over the next 20-30 years. Why?
Dr Libby in the 1970s said that "looking forward it will stay cold until the mid 80s (it did), then it will warm by about 1/4 degree F until the end of the century (it did), then it gets cold". When asked how cold she was predicting a 1-2 degree F drop with an outside chance of a 3-4 degree drop. Pray it is the former.
Dr Easterbrook in 2001 said the PDO was done it's positive warm cycle and that we were in for 25-30 years of cold weather. How cold? We have his good, bad and ugly predictions based on previous negative cold phases of the PDO. Pray it is the first one.
Dr Abdusamatov in 2006 said we are at the top of the temperature sine wave and it will be 200 years of cold weather. Pray he is wrong.
Why do I join with them and side with their predictions? While past performance is not a guarantee of future correctness it is a lot better record than the IPCC and their dozens of models of which none have been accurate. They are all based on CO2 controlling the climate and the other 3 are all cyclical natural cycles. I'll go with those who have a good track record at predicting future climate. Dr Libby is the most impressive as her prediction is 30+ years going and still accurate.
America is AHEAD of where we promised to be.
What about it?
Back in early 90's, China accounted for less than 10% of global CO2, with Europe and America over 20% each.
Now, China accounts for more than 33%, while Europe is around 11%, and America at less than 15%.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Chinese leaders chose that and then dump on western markets. The Chinese leaders are the issues.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The fact is, that those wind generators are being dumped on foreign markets. IOW, the majority of those are designed to take out other nation's work on their wind generators.
Instead, a far more useful number, is how many wind generators are going up in China, which is far far less.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
So many of you just fall for the BS.
First off, China has 15 reactors with another 15 planned and being worked on. America has 100+ reactors and has another 13 reactors planned/being worked on.
Secondly, CHina talks about doing many more reactors, but only once they grab the technology from the west. IOW, it is about taking tech from the west, not about lowering their emissions.
Third, China's NEW Coal plants for EACH YEAR for the next 6 years, will outstrip 3 years worth of building new nuke plants.
So, what it amounts to, is that while the west shuts down coal plants and replaces them with clean energy, China is on a massive build-out using plenty of coal plants in which they do not run scrubbers on them.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
They are in tough situation NOW, but 20 years ago, they had relatively much cleaner air (dirty by western measures, but still a fraction of what it is today). BUT, the fact that they continue to build out new coal plants, when they could instead build out more wind generators and solar, along with buying more nuke plants from the west, speaks volumes.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
China is doing 15 new reactors. America alone, has over 100+ reactors. Claiming that this will be more than what US and France produce is so much BS.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
America has done BETTER than what kyoto held us to.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
You mention the import tax, and that is ALMOST the right way.
Instead, America (in fact, all nations), should to a 'vat' tax on all goods based on where parts come from. Basically, tax the good for where it is the worst nation.
In addition, we need REAL CO2 numbers, not fake ones. As such, OCO2's numbers should be used. It will give us a clear pix of what nation is polluting and at what levels within the next 6 months.
Finally, normalization based on CO2 per capita is the worst idea going. Instead, it should be based on CO2 per GDP. Co2 emissions is NOT tied to ppl, but tied to business. In addition, by tying it to real GDP, it means that any nation that wants to cheat by lowering their money vs. others to get manufacturing, will pay a higher tax elsewhere, which will drop their exports.
OTOH, if they allow their money to float, and they focus on keeping their emissions low, then they end up being rewarded by not having a tax on their exports.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The fact is, that US's economy has recovered and continues to grow, and yet, the CO2 emissions continued to drop (but in 2013, it stablized). So, yeah, for 1-2 years out of nearly 6, the economy figured in. BUT, what REALLY mattered, is that we have been switching to nat gas while killing our coal plants. We did that while nations like China was building 2 new coal plants PER WEEK, and germany continues to grow THEIR coal usage.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Right now, on a per capita basis, America emits less than 2x per capita than what China does. In addition, while China's emissions grow yearly, America's drops. In addition, once OCO2's numbers are out there, it is very likely, that America's numbers will drop some, while China's will be more than America.
Based on the numbers that you show, I would think that it reflects on China's inefficienies, not America's.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Thank you for information, switching to gas would explain a lot.
I wonder whether this switch was caused by a policy (gas is "green") or economy (gas is cheaper). If the latter (which I suspect is true), this is still a side-effect of the economical situation, not a conscious decision.
Coal is widely available in countries like Germany or China, while USA has pretty much every resource you can think of. Basing local economy on what is most economically viable is capitalism rather than eco-friendliness. Good example is fracking, less CO2 but much more toxic substances in the ground.
By pushing against coal some countries also try to enforce a different thing on the other countries - when those limit using coal, they need to import gas (or other resources) from somewhere, at higher price than coal. Money flows elsewhere. Increasing gas consumption in Europe is just a tad difficult in current situation with Russia, which doesn't help with reductions.
Again, I suspect Obama is more motivated by economical implications rather than "eco".
Pity that atomic energy has earned such a bad label.
"If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America. They don't care." --Nelson Mandela
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/mehdi-hasan/nelson-mandela-iraq-israel_b_4396638.html
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