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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.
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
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.
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.
Please back it up with data and links.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
They don't seem to be upholding the agreement to not interfere politically with Hong Kong for 50 years ( after the hand over )
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
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
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.
Actually, the costs of generating electricity in the US has NEVER been this cheap, relative to the economy. The reason that your bill is high is NOT because of generation since nat gas, as well as Wind, in America is replacing coal due to their much lower costs.
OTOH, you will note that HISTORICALLY, utilities earned 1-2% profit margins and now, earn 10-20%. Likewise, the executives in private utilities are now some of the HIGHER paid executives. OTOH, public utilities have low-end pay for their executives, and oddly, public utilities are some of the lowest.
So, these MIGHT be the real issue there.
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.
There don't seem to be any concrete claims of that thus far. http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
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.
They don't seem to be upholding the agreement to not interfere politically with Hong Kong for 50 years
There is still a lot more democracy in HK today than there was when the British ran the place. The British didn't allow elections until 1992 (year 94 of their 99 year lease). Even then, only half the seats were elected, the other half were appointed.
For everyone in the western US that is paying $0.10/KWh or less, there are 5 people in California or the Northeast paying $0.18/KWh or more. Or Alaska and Hawaii that are paying $0.20/KWh and up. Real Data rather than numbers pulled from ass.
Yes, on average, it looks like energy production is quite cheap. But, there are people getting squeezed pretty hard if you look a bit deeper, and it's usually the people that can't afford the additional pressure.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
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"
So, you say we should ditch those jobs that can pay up to about $95K/yr....and put those workers all on the dole (I'm hoping you're not thinking of cutting their pay too)....and have them sit on their asses, producing nothing?
And where does the magic pile of money to pay for THIS come from?
Hell, how do "I" get on this gravy train of magic money for doing nothing come from?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
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.
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.
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...
The State Department is involved because the pipeline crosses an international border.
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!