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."

Comments

Ya...Right

[sycodon]

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.

Re:Ya...Right

[rogoshen1]

yep, Great Lip Service Accord of 2014. (though from both parties, not just China.)

Re:Ya...Right

[Pope Hagbard]

Now anyone who thinks this'll pass the Senate, raise your other hand.

The Republicans are too far into the denialist camp to countenance letting this go forward, not to mention their reflexively being against everything Obama's for.

Re:Ya...Right

[jeffmflanagan]

> And when Obama is for everything that is shit
This is a wingnut belief, not reality.

>then it's good to be against everything he is for.
This is how the wingnut Republicans actually operate. They have the minds of spoiled children.

Re:Ya...Right

[Anonymous Coward]

All the while, China will continue to open a coal plane every week until 2030. Yup, the great negotiator. Thanks for the help Obama.

Re:Ya...Right

[0123456]

Why not mandate faster changes? Like cut in half in 1 year.

Duh. Because the politicians who vote for the changes don't want to be around if they actually happen.

The only people who win from this are the Chinese, as they'll cripple the US economy and don't have to do anything for fifteen years. Fortunately, the Republicans can now ensure any such agreement is dead on arrival.

Re:Ya...Right

[AmiMoJo]

The same could be argued of the US. It just ignores agreements and treaties when it suits itself. Pretending that China is any worse is just borderline racism.

China has demonstrated a willingness to clean up in the past. For example, the EU introduced RoHS and China adopted it because the EU is a major customer. That's the sort of agreement that will work - a requirement to meet certain standards in order to sell stuff into a huge market.

Re:Ya...Right

[dywolf]

China's envirnmental record is improving at a rapid pace. They're taking pollution quite seriously.
Millions of people being sick in cities where the permanent fog is actually pollution puts a large damper on your economic ambitions.

In fact, they take the environment far more seriously than we do.

Like how theyve found that water quality regulations are important, after a pig farmer dumped a few thousand dead and sick pigs into a river, that sicked thousands of people downstream. We're trying to hamstring our EPA and have people, mostly GOP, in congress talking like Clean Water and Clean Air acts are bad things. Meanwhile their equivalent put that guy in jail for something like 20 years.

So I trust them far more to hold up their end of hte deal.

Re:Ya...Right

[dywolf]

So this'll be just like the ebola scare.

Last month is was:
GOP: Why, we dont even have a surgeon general! This POTUS is irresponsible.
Reality: Why don't have a Surgeon General? Oh ya. The Senate GOP keeps filibustering the nominees.

So in a few years it'll be:
GOP: He made a deal with China to cut pollution, but then he didn't follow through!
Reality: Because we (GOP) voted it down in the Senate!

Re:Ya...Right

[i kan reed]

And it ignores that relatively basic notion that treaties of this sort tend to have binding requirements that actually allow for trade-based disincentives for breaking them.

China doesn't want increased trade tariffs as a penalty to violating the treaty. Oh, sure they'll fudge their official numbers to look like they're in compliance when they're not sometimes, but that's just how laws influence behavior anyways.

Re:Ya...Right

[DigiShaman]

Oh horse shit!! While China may be improving their environmental problems now, they're no where near the level of zeal the US has with the EPA focusing in on cleaning up that last 1%.

Laws of diminishing returns. Look it up.

Quite the poker player

[argStyopa]

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.

Re:Quite the poker player

[jratcliffe]

China's producing 7.2 tons per person. The US is producing 16.5 tons per person.
http://www.bbc.com/news/scienc...

The US is committing to cutting its emissions to 14.1 tons per person (down 27% from 19.3 in 2005). That's still 2x China's current level. Why on earth would China agree to forever have half the emissions per capita of the US?

Re:Quite the poker player

[jratcliffe]

Note that if AGW is NOT an existential threat, it's probably not important to bother with landmark agreements that won't accomplish anything meaningful anyway.

So, we should never have any international treaties about anything that's not an existential threat? Got it. Let's dump that pesky Geneva Convention, the human race will survive whether or not prisoners are tortured. Let's also drop those treaties around the use of space - if we end up with satellites in the same orbital slot, interfering with each other's signals, it won't result in the end of the human race.

Ever consider that something that's not absolutely perfect in every possible way could still be an improvement over the status quo? A car doesn't get you from point A to point B instantly, does that mean we should just walk everywhere? Of course not.

Re:Quite the poker player

[i kan reed]

Oh, this is a brilliant line of reasoning from the crowd that brought us the "have scientists considered the sun, yet?" argument.

No. It's never been an existential crisis. There are 2 kinds of people claiming that, 1. A few non-scientist ultra-enviornmentalists attempting to make over-the-top rhetorical arguments and 2. Idiots on the right wing who find that strawman easy to take apart.

The actual analyses of climate changes effects show an unpleasant, but not extinction level, result that's far more economically expensive than changeover to renewables would ever be.

So, why bother if we're not jumping immediately and completely? Because 3 more degrees C by 2100 is a lot better in terms of consequences than 5 more degrees C by 2100.