Slashdot Mirror
India Ratifies The Paris Climate Change Agreement (npr.org)
"India just ratified the Paris climate deal -- bringing it extremely close to taking effect," reports the Washington Post, calling India the world's fourth-largest producer of greenhouse gas. An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes NPR's update on the Paris agreement:
It will not become binding until it's ratified by 55 countries that contribute a total of at least 55% of global greenhouse gas emissions. The 55-country requirement has already been fulfilled -- India is No. 62 -- but...the current signatories account for about 52 percent of global greenhouse emissions, according to a statement released by the U.N. on Sunday.
India currently produces about 4.5 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions [and] has set a goal of producing 40 percent of its electricity with non-fossil fuel sources by 2030. India also promised to plant or preserve enough tree cover to act as a sink for at least 2.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide, and has called on the U.S. and other fully developed countries to share technologies that help decrease emissions.
India currently produces about 4.5 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions [and] has set a goal of producing 40 percent of its electricity with non-fossil fuel sources by 2030. India also promised to plant or preserve enough tree cover to act as a sink for at least 2.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide, and has called on the U.S. and other fully developed countries to share technologies that help decrease emissions.
It's years to late and even if it where ratified by the required number of countries there is no mechanism to force compliance and no targets from previous treaties have even come close to being met
Can we just admit we don't care about children and get on with the business of enslaving them and destroying the planet for our own limited comfort without pretense of ethics or morality
Remember when "acid rain" was the #1 environmental problem? - No? - Neither does anyone else under 40 because Reagan and Thatcher pushed for (and won) a global cap + trade treaty on sulphur emissions. Besides, if climate treaties don't make a practical difference, why has the coal industry spent the last 30-40yrs doing everything it can to sabotage them?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
These figures are even more interesting when you consider populations:
US: 4.35% of the population (324 million people), 17.89% of greenhouse gasses.
India 17.9% of the population (1330 million people), 4.10% of greenhouse gasses.
1 US citizen creates 17x the greenhouse gasses that an Indian citizen does.
Just imagine what will happen if India achieves the same prosperity level as the US.
That is why, even with radical changes in both the west and countries like India and China, it will be a major feat to just stop the increase in greenhouse gasses output. Let alone actually reducing it.
It's both. Prosperity means that time becomes more valuable than money, and money can buy machinery to do work for you. Imagine you cannot afford that SUV and have to go by bus. Yes, that takes way more hours and is horribly inconvenient, but it also means a lower emission footprint. Of course nobody would willingly accept that hardship for no good reason, so the only "good enough" reason would probably be that you can't afford your own car.
Same goes for a lot of other things. Air condition being one, clothes dryer another. We use a lot of machines that increase our quality of life that contribute to pollution, directly or indirectly.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
That shift is already happening, on both ends. Look at the per capita emissions of each country. In the US, Europe (including Eastern Europe), emissions have been dropping steadily since the 90s and are still dropping. Those in India and China are seeing a sharp increase, though they are still well below US levels. In the 90s, a US citizen produced almost 25x the amount of CO2 of someone from India. Today, it's "only" 9x. China emits more CO2 per capita than the EU average (Source, see page 31).
The lesson here is that it appears that we can actually reduce our emissions significantly without radical changes to our lifestyle, and that developing nations can have a level of prosperity similar to ours without necessarily breaking the planet. Not that we should sit back and relax, quite the contrary, but we shouldn't let ourselves be scared into "radical" solutions either.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...