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U.S. and China Make Landmark Climate Deal
An anonymous reader writes: After extended talks on the issue of climate change, the U.S. and China have reached a landmark accord to curb emissions in the near future. The two countries are the top carbon polluters, so their actions are likely to have a major effect on world pollution levels and also set the standard for other countries. The agreement includes China's first-ever commitment to stop the growth of its emissions by 2030. They plan on shifting a big chunk of their energy production to renewables in that time. The U.S. agreed to emit 26-28% less carbon in 2025 than it did in 2005. Their efforts could spur greater enthusiasm for a new global climate agreement in 2015.
Reader jones_supa adds details of another interesting part of the U.S.-China talks:
Technology products look likely to gain more access to international markets as a result of upgrade between the U.S. and China on a 1996 tariff-eliminating trade agreement that President Obama announced Tuesday in Beijing. The agreement is expected to lower prices on a raft of new technology products by eliminating border tariffs — a price impact that's expected to be larger outside the United States, since U.S. tariffs on high-tech goods are generally lower than those overseas. "This is a win-win-win agreement for information and communication technology industries in the U.S., Europe, Japan and China, for businesses and consumers who purchase IT products and for the global economy."
Everyone who believes China will uphold their end of the deal, raise your hand.
Thought so.
I wonder where Obama is going to plant those magic beans he just bought.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Uh huh. Yeah. Uh huuuhhh.
Coming from the GOP in 3... 2... 1...
So China promises to stop increasing by 2030, and the US promises to cut ~26% by 2025.
That's powerful negotiation right there. I wish I were discussing my next raise with this administration.
-Styopa
Coming from the drug addled, now depressed, and thoroughly spanked Liberals.
This is a great deal for US businesses who are US in name only and who use China for their OEMs and ODMs. It means Chinese can buy US products made in their country. Does this help US consumers in any way? Nope. Does it drop the wealth flying out of the US to China? Nope. Does it get US banks bailed out by US taxpayers to actually bother to lend to US businesses. Nope.
Even worse is the same old cap and trade bullshit. The EPA came down on the steel industry like a ton of bricks. Guess what. US steel places went under, and now we have to import basically our metals from China. Same with many other industries. This treaty is just going to be a burden on US businesses who be further forced to do their manufacturing offshore (and thus be 51% owned by Chinese interested on mainland soil.) As for China holding their end up on this treaty, they might put their foot down on a polluting industry or two, but if it came to their progress, the treaty would just be completely ignored, while here in the US, treaties supersede the Constitution (this is why the DMCA, part of the WIPO treaty, takes precedence over the First Amendment as per court rulings.)
First, let me mention that the Chinese are lying, as always. Second, 30 years from now is about 40 years too late to do anything about climate change.
China maintained a 99 year lease with the UK through a number of revolutions. Thy seem capable of keeping agreements.
This is NOT going to help lower the CO2. China has a free pass to continue to push CO2 emissions all that they want, until 2030. 16 years out. Where was China's emissions 16 years ago? They accounted for about 7-10% of global emissions based on the same guestimates that we have now. However, NOW, China accounts for 33% of all CO2 emissions. Even using per capita normalization, they are doing over 10 and growing fast. OTOH, America is current below 15% global emissions, with a per capita of under 15 and dropping.
Note that America's, along with most of the west's, numbers are pretty much real measurements, while China's is based on estimates that Chinese gov. supplied the data for.
OCO2 will show that western numbers are close to where we claim, while China's are going to go out-of-sight.
Several good things going for this though:
1) CONgress will not approve it as a treaty, so nothing enforced other than for the next 2 years.
2) We can STILL take other actions that will put pressure on ALL NATIONS to be below a certain level of emissions. Basically, by taxing all goods, predicated on where they/components come from vs. the CO2 per GDP of the worse nation of good/component, it will put pressure on ALL nations to lower their CO2 or for nations like Denmark, and Sweden that have low numbers, to keep it there. Note that this approach rewards all nations that have taken the steps to lower theirs. 3) We need to quit guessing the amount of CO2 and have REAL numbers for all nations. Since nations like CHina block scientists, then we should be using OCO2 which will have real numbers and with the exact same measuring tool. It will also show how much of a nation's 'emissions' are actually from other nations.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The US already has legislation, the Clean Air Act. Regulations are already in place, being promulgated or are written and up for public comment.
thanks for increasing my electric bill all based on load of crap pseudo science religion.
Please back it up with data and links.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Here is Secretary Kerry's take: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11... Now, he just needs to deny the Keystone XL pipeline permit.
Many/most posts on this subject are on how terrible a deal this is for America and China getting off Scott free.
Or on the other hand, China's emissions per citizen is much lower than America's. So basically America can only agree to cut emissions if our historic advantage is preserved when negotiating with other countries. We got to polluted at much higher levels for decades, but now that emerging economies are polluting as much or more, well all that s**t has to come to a stop.
If America wants the world to have a better environment then it needs to lead by example – not demand we get the best deal. China is developing renewables at a much faster clip than America, but it still has a lot of ground to catch up on a per-citizen basis in economics. It is a foregone conclusion that China will pollute more than America in the short run while it catches up economically. To expect them to stay behind because we don't like it, even though we basically did the same or worse when adjusted for population just won't fly. As China becomes more affluent you can expect pollution levels to decrease as an enriched middle-class demands a better environment. Yes there will be damage in the short run, but this is probably unavoidable given political realities. Better to do something than nothing.
I'm fine with being mad at China for human right's abuses or lack of free speech, but this whining is really about we-got-our-nut, screw everyone else if they try to catch up.
If you really want to save the world, push for Nuclear-Fusion research. We know this is a solvable problem if we just have the political will to tackle it. Others like Lockheed might get there before ITER, but in general this needs a Manhattan project level off commitment to be certain it is solved, not just wait and hope the free market takes care of it, because you know in the meantime we are still burning oil and coal.
Letter To Iran
This will never pass in the Senate so it's a complete waste of time.
Approval for Keystone is going to be added on to must pass legislation.
USA pledges to reduce carbon emissions compared to 2005 levels, when their emissions were the highest ever in history.
USA has already lowered their emissions by half the 2025 goal just from the slowing the economy after the 2008 bank crash.
Meanwhile, Europe has pledged to reduce emissions by 40% by 2030 compared to 1990's levels..
If USA would reduce their emissions to their 1990 levels, then that would be a ~20% reduction from 2005 levels, and 40% from that is still a long way to go.
Sorry, but this US-China deal is hardly any "landmark".
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
For all the sycophants screaming THE US HAS A GREATER PERCENTAGE OF CARBON PER PERSON THAN CHINA!
Which is sort of a curious number to base arguments around instead of something more basic like... Oh I dunno... "total carbon output per nation"
Population from google just now...
US - 316 million
China - 1.35 billion (with a b)
In 2010 the actual carbon output was (from wikipedia)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...
CO2 emissions (kt) - percentage of world output
US - 5433057 - 16.16%
China - 8286892 - 24.65%
Steel from China was due to prices, but it had little to nothing to do with labor prices. It had to do with China fixing the yuan against the Dollar, as well as Chinese gov. subsidizing all parts of it, and then finally, dumping it on the west. Europe was smart to block it with tariffs, but we did not.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
What did we give China for this worthless agreement? Preferential trade and tariff concession I have to assume.
Instead, Obama and greenies would be better off, if we would cut a deal on this, so that Keystone goes through, and in return, we create a limited time subsidy that helps move new commercial vehicles to nat gas, perhaps serial hybrids.
Note that Keystone will NOT bring anymore tar sand than the trains. OTOH, with the above deal, it WILL drop our oil imports, which will lower the price of oil, which will make tar sands uneconomical. In addition, at the same time, it will make for cleaner air, and far less CO2 emissions.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
When will intelligent people begin to realize that the world is not warming up due to carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere from fossil fuel combustion? These 'agreements' about carbon are ridiculous and will be laughed at 20 years from now.
First thing is: Obama signed a treaty, until it is ratified by the Senate it has no meaning or force of law on anyone or anything in the U. S. A. Number two: The U. S. A. cripples it's economy while China does nothing but make things worse for 15 years, why would anyone think this helps cut pollution in any way? China today puts more pollution in the air in a week than the U. S. A. does in a year. How is this going to make any measurable difference?
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
Wow another Climate Change (TM) article? Color me surprised. Why even pretend you do tech news anymore? Just switch it over to the "Climate Change FUD network" and stop wasting everyone's time.
Shit site.
The US government commitment would mean that they are cutting from 16 t per persons per year to 12 t per person per year, or about the level it was emitting in 1980. Note that the USA is already halfway there : http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/images/indicator_figures/us-ghg-emissions-figure1-2014.png. No wonder they said 2005 as reference (the high point of the decade) rather than 2014. It is a small step from the 2014 emission.
Whereas for China it means dropping from less than 8t per year per person to about 5t per year per person it looks like it would be a huge step for China but not a big one for USA.
If you're going to keep a job going merely because it stops them going on the dole, then why not just cut to the chase and let them go on the dole for the same amount of money?
"Are you sure tons per capita is the appropriate metric?"
Yes.
You see if not, then all china has to do to reduce their per-country emissions is to invade the USA and produce the goods there with their own exported workers and fuck up the environment YOU live in, rather than THEIRS.
They could also halve the emissions by sectioning off areas as protectorates, nominally different countries. Just like you had in Iran for a bit. Bingo, instant loss.
Named after the Star Trek character who always beats his time estimates because he did it already.
The year 2005 as start year was the peak coal-electricity year. Abundant, cheap methane discoveries have ead to switch over a third of electricity generation to natural gas and cut CO2 15% since 2005.
Another 13% to goal. New coal plant regulations and the car mileage laws willl reach most of that.
We just need to keep sabotaging our economy, and we can easily do better than that. Bush and Obama both demonstrated how to do that very effectively.
This is a good deal?! China already pumps out 25% of the world's CO2 compared to the US's 16%.
A fair deal would have had China pledging to reduce their emissions, not continue raising them!
Probably that cardshark Obama tried his "don't call my bluff!" threat again. That would explain it.
"I improvise. It's my greatest talent. I prefer situations to plans..." --Wintermute, William Gibson's "Neuromancer"
Because President Obama failed to appoint and administrator for the Economic Regulatory Administration which has responsibility for this area. http://www.law.cornell.edu/usc... So, it ended up, stupidly, in the State Department's lap.
Clean water and air isn't a religion.
Mitch McConnell cosponsored a resolution in 1997 demanding commitments from China. http://www.nationalcenter.org/... Now, when President Obama delivers the deal he asked for he backpedals. http://www.nytimes.com/politic... He was for commitments from China before he was against them for sure. Seems like he is a lot like Boehner who can't deliver on deals either.
China's emissions expected to rise until 2030, despite ambitious green policies
Analysts say that beneath the apparent contradiction lies a consensus that barring any significant changes in policy, China's emissions will rise until around 2030 – when the country's urbanisation peaks, and its population growth slows – and then begins to fall.
Great. Obama just let the Chinese agree to what was published knowledge two years ago.
During those first two Obama years the Democrats had a supermajority in the House and a fillibuster-proof supermajority in the Senate. They could do ANYTHING they wanted with that level of control!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THAT is why they were able to lock Republicans out of the rooms where they wrote the Obamacare law. With the total control they had during those two years the Democrats were so obnoxious they could (and in many cases DID) push bills and policies without any input from any Republicans. The Republicans had NO power to block them, and even when Scott Brown got elected to the Senate (leaving the Dems in control but without the supermajority) they STILL rammed Obamacare through by using their majority ststus to mess with the rules.
THE ONLY REASON the Democrats did not do every green, gay, abortion, open-borders, etc thing they wanted was that their pollsters told them these things were sufficiently unpopular that doing too many of them might lead them to lose control in the next election; they prioritized and went for the biuggest two things on their agenda:
1. Healthcare (like ALL left-wingers on Earth, they know that government control of healthcare is government control of the lives of the citizens)
2. Money for their supporters (The nearly billion dollar "stimulus bill" that was sold as a new energy grid, universal high-speed internet, massive infrastructure rebuild, etc but was almost entirely funneled into cash for dem supporters like public sector unionized workers and green energy firms)
The Democrats felt no actual pressure to use their super-majorities to help blacks or latinos or women or to do any of the other stuff because they need those issues in all elections and are always able to motivate their base with them; they cannot afford to ever truly solve any of them.
The Republicans have not had that level of political power (the Presidency plus supermajorities in both the House and Senate) since the reconstruction years immediately post-civil-war when almost nobody in the US was willing to admit to being a Democrat (given that all the slave owners had been Democrats, it was at the time sort of like being a nazi in post-WWII-Germany).
Since "Big Oil" is EVIL we need to spank them by banning the pipeline.... with the following results:
1. Instead of the oil being processed and used with stricter US pollution controls, it will be shipped to China for processing and used there without ANY significant emissions controls... somehow this will "save the planet" because apparently communist emissions don't hurt the planet
2. Any of the shale oil that IS shipped into the US (before the pipeline or if there is excess) will move in Warren Buffet's oil tanker railroad cars (the current status). Yeah, that's right ignorant liberal dupes: One of Obama's billionare backers bought-up a lot of the nation's rail transport capacity for oil and makes money moving oil in train cars. Every month that a pipeline is not built, this super-rich Obama supporter who is not "paying his fair share" (uses lots of coprorations and offshore financial instruments to suppress his tax burdens) makes money moving oil in train cars (which is FAR riskier for all those underprivileged neighborhoods though which those cars pass). Liberals used to call this: "disparate impact" and demand "environmental justice"...
3. Canada has announced they WILL pump that oil either to the US or China... so the questions really are: will American unionized workers build and operate a pipeline in the US or will some other workers build a pipeline in Canada to their west coast? and will American unionized workers refine that oild in American facilities or will Chinese workers get those jobs in China (so much for Democrats being the party of "the working man" in the US)
So what? At least in the US companies will "convince" Congress to repeal any parts of the agreement that might affect their profits, regardless of what the majority of people want.
Wait. We are talking about Net Neutrality, right?
Bark less. Wag more.
FTA: "U.S. and China Reach Climate Accord After Months of Talks". The U.S. hasn't agreed to anything, because the Senate isn't going to ratify this. This will serve no purpose but to cast shame upon those who won't follow Der Fuhrer Obama. We know which side of the isle the New York Times favors...
The NYT is about three steps ahead of you. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08...
So if they plan to "peak" at around 2030 then following their increase from 1980 (1.5 gigatons) to 2010 (7.5 gigatons) that means they'll be around 11 - 12 gigatons by 2030. I just wish they'd burn the coal cleanly. CO2 is not a worry. All the other stuff coming out is a cause for concern. I know that is heresy to the CAGW cultists who inhabit slashdot but it is just a fact. CO2 does not control the climate.
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.
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.
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 2 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.
If you want to read a great explanation of why the IPCC models are broken beyond belief there was a great article describing that and all the other problems with climate science by Dr Brown of Duke university
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/10/06/real-science-debates-are-not-rare/
We damage our economy further, they promise nothing. They steal our tech, shove it in our face, and we do nothing. Obama is a joke, the Democrats incompetent, and we as a country are idiots for leaving these people in power.
Aren't we already pretty much past the point of no return for dramatic climate change now? So when we're all in 2030, with far more noticeable effects of global warming than we have seen yet today, we're all going to dance and cheer because now China's emissions will start going down, which might mean benefits a few decades out from there? And they're going to say "Thanks so much, people of 2014" for making sure that our current suffering due to sea level rise and breathing in air pollution is going to start reversing around 2045!