Slashdot Mirror
Sweden Pledges To Cut All Greenhouse Gas Emissions By 2045 (independent.co.uk)
Sweden has announced ambitious plans to completely phase out greenhouse gas emissions by 2045. The nation also reaffirmed the urgency of tackling climate change and called for all countries to "step up and fulfill the Paris Agreement." The Independent reports: "Our target is to be an entirely fossil-fuel-free welfare state," said Climate Minister Isabella Lovin. "We see that the advantages of a climate-smart society are so huge, both when it comes to health, job creation and also security. Being dependent on fossil fuels and gas from Russia is not what we need now,â she added. All parties but the far-right Sweden Democrats party agreed to pass the law in the coming month, which will oblige the government to set tougher goals to cut fossil fuel emissions every four years until the 2045 cut-off date. Plans also include a 70 per cent cut to emissions in the domestic transport sector by 2030. The Government said the target would require domestic emissions to be cut by at least 85 per cent and the remaining emissions would be offset by planting trees or by sustainable investments abroad. The law is expected to enter into force as early as 2018.
We've gone past a point of no return. On top of that, an almost 30 year plan? When governments make 5-year plans they generally fall apart...
I live near the border. I'll got over there in 2045 and fart.
They're going to prevent water evaporating and animals exhaling?
Our target is to be an entirely fossil-fuel-free welfare state
Well, if they try to eliminate all fossil fuels and remain competitive with the rest of the developed world at the same time, a welfare state is exactly what they will become.
So is there a plan, a roadmap, or is this just a pledge? My own country has similar (but way less ambitious) targets, but very little in the way of actual plans or even policies to make it happen. "Over the next x years we will invest €y in green tech" means bugger all, but if you instead state "We will build an offshore wind farm producing x MW to offset the coal fired plants we're shutting down", then at least there's a concrete and measurable result. And the first steps are the easiest; you'll need a good plan to get that last 20% of emissions. As you go along it'll get more expensive and harder, some stuff (like airplanes) doesn't have many green alternatives, and at some point you'll find that it's hard to get reliable baseload power from renewables if you don't have access to geo or hydro options. All that doesn't mean you shouldn't try, but it takes more than targets and money.
On a side note: that's one angry looking lady...
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
And then there's us with our orange shithead at the helm ramping back up on burning coal and oil, for no other reason except greed.
How are they planning on cutting emissions from cows, reindeer, elk, and other ruminants (domesticated and wild) to zero? Curious minds would like to know (without reading TFA).
Do they have a plan how to stop people from breathing?
What are they going to do about imports from industries that still produce CO2 ?
If we could just build a huge wall around Europe up into space and avoid having all the US, Chinese, Russian coal and and such emissions out of our nice clean air.
Sigh.
That's cool and all, but they are *not* pledging to end all greenhouse gas emissions. Methane is a greenhouse gas, and if they have a plan to make everyone in the country stop farting, I'd love to hear it (also, on a more realistic note, livestock too) Same goes for CO2, unless they're pledging to hold their breath until the planet cools down. What they're actually pledging to to stop using fossil fuels for energy, which will necessarily lead to a decrease in net CO2 emissions, but is distinctly separate from ending all greenhouse gas emissions.
Pound! Bang! Bin! Bash! is this a shell script or a Batman comic?
The US will never be a leader in what to do with Climate Change the country keeps changing it's mind every 4 to 8 years. Other Countries need to get together and lead, ignoring the US. Even China and India are getting concerned from what I heard. So Sweden is doing the correct thing.
People in the US have a addiction to large gas guzzling Auto worse that the most hard core heron addict. The newest two excuses I hear is 1) They are higher and I can see better. 2) they are larger thus safer. Ignoring the fact with almost everyone is driving the same type auto those two excuses are irrelevant. Nevermind the strangle hold of the established Corporations.
Pres, Carter brought up Climate Change up as a big issue the late 70's and stated if work not started now. it be more difficult going forward. He even installed Solar Panels on the White House. When Regan came in the first thin he did was rip them down and said Carter was nuts. Since then the US have been going around in circles.
I guess I'm going to have to deal with regular Swedish babes, till the new carbon emission-free model comes out. Life sure is harsh in *this* simulation.
Please report to the local health center Monday.
We will be distributing anal plugs with catalytic converters to eliminate CO2 and CH4 emissions.
Consumption of beans and other legumes is now prohibited.
I was a heron addict once, but I turned my life around when I managed to switch to pelicans.
you let out green house gasses. by 2045 it will be 50 percent lunatic rapey muslims. so that goal means zero
When Regan came in the first thin he did was rip them down and said Carter was nuts
The panels had to come down for roof renovation, but they didn't go back up because carter peanuts reagan big oil etc.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
What are they gonna do, stop breathing?
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
It's kinda redundant, isn't it? The economic suicide is sure to follow once they adopt sharia law. Which will happen before 2045, at their current rate, so the whole point is moot anyway...
I was a heron addict once, but I turned my life around when I managed to switch to pelicans.
yes, misspelled heroin, but I cannot mod you up, whoever you are, you had me laughing for a while :)
If you have to import your coal and oil it only makes sense to go to completely fossil free solutions.
...on green energy, virtue signaling, hijab fashion, and vaginal and anal repair surgery.
Protecting woman's and children rights to begin with or dealing with their out of control rape problems, ehh... not so much.
The Swedish government, like many other governments in Europe and the US, is so out of touch with the people that they are driving voters into the arms of right wing extremists; the "Sweden Democrats" have gone from a non-entity to the second strongest party in Sweden in just a few years.
There efforts are better expended on reducing the skyrocketing rape stats.
Hmm...How could they do that I wonder...
What? You don't want people to say they're going to do better because YOU think it's virtuous to try to do better? WTF dude?
When are you going to start using that brain? It's supposed to do more than use up calories and dissipate heat.
No cooking fires? No farts? No exhaling?
The only thing these measures do is create a two-tiered system where the nomenklatura still drive and fly as they please while imposing everything on regular people.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Strange. "I will lead Sweden in terraforming the Earth to make Sweden a slightly more temperate land" doesn't have much purchase there, I guess.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Cars may be all electric by that time, but it's a long way until aircraft don't emit CO2. Is this the end of Volvo and Saab?
Swedes don't like all that warm weather, neither Canadians, nor Russians. ;-)
Why on earth would we WANT America to "lead"? So their horrid patent system could hog all the technologies? So their corporations can make tons of money while the world chokes on pollution? So their bigoted, racist people could shout about how great they are? I think not.
Americans are the least educated and knowledgeable of foreign affairs, languages, and disparate cultures, societies, and social norms amongst all Westernized countries and the least exposed universally. The United States is a violent white supremacist settler empire whose only fate is annihilation.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
good idea, the way that nation has been destroyed, stop breathing altogether and just all die. It's what power wants.
Swedish politics is all about Russia. I guess it's to cover their own asses from their own treason and the monster we all call the EU.
There's only one reason a nation like Saudi-Arabia is viewed as acceptable and is respected and that's because they sell oil. If it wasn't for that they would be called what they are.
Well, if they try to eliminate all fossil fuels and remain competitive with the rest of the developed world at the same time, a welfare state is exactly what they will become.
Swedish electricity has already been made of close to 100% hydro-power and nuclear power. We've got fewer nuclear plants running now and less need for it, Norway is way ahead of us when it comes to electric cars and there's much pointing into that direction. We could just had replaced a few nuclear reactors with modern technology but I guess wind and solar may be more likely.
Isabella Lövin is (foreign?) aid minister in the government and a minister of the environmentalists pro-mass-invasion welfare lunatics party so her view doesn't necessarily represent all of Sweden but our weak government is an alliance of Social-democrats, no-border-environmentalist-ideologists and with the support and demands from the communists so no emissions, everyone welcome, welfare for everyone is right up their ally. They also claim they are the first feminist government in the world but twice as many women was the victim of sexual abuse last year over the year before and in Sweden you can get away with that by for instance claiming you were asleep when it happened (I don't know how that one work if you do it out in public but maybe it work then too, it's Sweden after-all) or you can just lie about your age or something such (the rapists in Sweden are imported with poor data about whom they actually are so it works fine in most cases, our highest court has decided it's a breach of integrity to force someone to have their biological age checked by medical tests if they don't want to so ..)
SAAB is now owned by the Chinese and will only produce Electric Vehicles.
Volvo is also owned by the Chinese. They are producing EV's in conjunction with Renault/Nissan.
Swedish people are very conservative and resepct their environment. You should go there and see for yourself.
They are wonderful people once you get to know them. Bit different sense of humour though.
Be prepared to gasp when you see the price of booze though.
Why they does not even look around before proposing such progressive nonsense? Perhaps, because conforming to the image of a progressive eco-hipster is the main agenda of those "lawmakers"? Swedish economy is almost entirely rely on diesel engine trucks and buses. Thousands of small towns and villages are receiving its supplies by trucks. Almost every family own at least one non-electric car. There is no way to survive in Swedish rural areas without a car. There is simple not enough public transportation. So, what does they propose? To force all the people to buy electric cars? Without appropriate infrastructure? To build that infrastructure across whole country first? To force transport companies to switch to non-existent electric trucks and buses? To switch to over-hyped solar in a country which enjoys weeks of cloudy weather in a row and the sun barely seen on the horizon in winter month, with a third of territory in polar region? Dear over-progressive leftist environmentalists - wouldn't it be better to do some reality checks? BTW, who will pay for all required infrastructure?
But they didn't say they were going to "normal levels". They said they were going to cut ALL emissions. They better stop breathing if they want to meet that goal, since CO2 is a green house gas they are emitting.
The Government said the target would require domestic emissions to be cut by at least 85 per cent and the remaining emissions would be offset by planting trees or by sustainable investments abroad.
So we'll just ignore the significant contribution that human digestion plays in the emission of carbon dioxide and methane ?
How about Saab Aircraft?
So, one breath, one seedling?
There are over 1.5 million deer-related accidents annually. A significant number where other vehicles are not blocking the line of sight, IOW, not in city / urban driving.
This kind of thing is one of the reasons why choosing a larger, heavier vehicle with a better view can be effective in increasing occupant safety in real terms. At least until the deer, elk and so on start driving their own heavy vehicles. Soon, you think?
There are others, such as the ability of a higher-ground clearance 4x4 to handle snow and ice better than a smaller vehicle, utilize more effective tires, longer throw / better angle headlights, etc. Plus, we can pull your little POS out of the ditch when you get stuck in it, so there's that.
The world is not a uniform place where little compacts are the solution to everything everywhere. Now wipe the drool off your chin and go take your meds so the adults can continue with a reasoned discussion.
You shut up, or Dear Leader will grab your pussy! He's tremendous! We have the best Dear Leader!
Hey, we here in the USA don't like Russians either. Canadians are okay, though. They gave us poutine.
--fyngyrz
anon due to mod points
But they didn't say they were going to "normal levels". They said they were going to cut ALL emissions. They better stop breathing if they want to meet that goal, since CO2 is a green house gas they are emitting.
People who say we'd better stop breathing because of the CO2 we exhale are just demonstrating what dumb shits they are. They don't have enough scientific knowledge to understand that the CO2 they exhale came from CO2 that plants extracted from the atmosphere within the past few years and has no long term net effect on the level of CO2 in the atmosphere. But at least making the claim is a good marker for someone that is stupid enough they can be ignored.
Is still Swedish company.
Their most famous product is probably the Carl-Gustav recoilless anti-tank rifle.
Last year they also aquired Kockums submarines.
It is so obvious that the US is superior in all ways that to keep killing ourselves with pollution and global warming is part and parcel of American genius. It is not remotely possible that any other nation can do anything better than we do. Get a clue folks. We have squirrels in the White House and a super corrupt right wing that is brought and paid for by coal and oil industries. So just give them that idiotic grin when they declare "Well, I'm not a climate scientist.".
There is no substitute on the horizon for kerosene belching jets. Even ferries are currently mostly diesel. So perhaps swedes will use their renewable chargedteslas togoto aver pavilions of the illusion of places beyond their orders,or wait, electric trains long way round to other carbon spewing countries?
"Knowing everything doesn't help..."
This is the same political party that has on their agenda to implement a non-violence defense force. Enough said. I nurture a weakening hope that voters will clear these fools out of the Swedish parliament in the elections next year.
And I hope their neighbors follow their lead. It should provide no end of amusement. It's not like they are doing anything else to contribute to the betterment of humankind.
I love how a bunch of autistic tech nerds think they know better than actual climate scientists.
If global warming is real, caused by human activity, and catastrophic for human life then I'd expect the powers that be to act very much differently than they are. Since they don't seem to be acting in a way consistent with being convinced of the dangers of fossil combustion then I feel no need to do so either. Here's a few things I'd like to see from the US Federal government to convince me that CAGW is a real and actual threat.
Lets start with the big consumer of fuel in the federal government, the military. The US Navy wants nuclear powered ships to replace their oil fired ships, they should give them to them. Carriers and subs are already nuclear powered but so should every "mini-carrier", those helicopter landing ships, amphibious attack ships, and other ships that carry helicopters, amphibious landing craft, and command and control ships of similar size and design. The US Coast Guard is in need of some new ice breakers to enable the US Navy and cargo ships to navigate the Northern seas. Last I heard they wanted six ice breakers, two heavy, two medium, and two more of a light, heavy, or medium capacity. As they service Antarctic stations these ships would preferably be as large as possible, carry as much cargo as possible, be as speedy as possible, and be able to travel in tropical waters. Russia has nuclear powered ice breakers but they are stuck in the Arctic due to the risk of over heating when traveling near the equator, the cooling systems need near freezing waters to keep the reactors cool.
The US Navy has been developing a technology that can extract CO2 and hydrogen from seawater and turn that into fuel suitable for their helicopters, jets, and smaller seacraft. This uses nuclear power to drive the process and therefore creates a carbon free hydrocarbon based fuel. If this works for the Navy then it will work for the other uniformed services too.
This also removes much of the incentive to obtain fuel from war torn nations, further removing the need to send troops to far off places.
Then we can move on to non-military consumers of fossil fuels.
One big way we have seen the USA reduce it's carbon output is in the falling price of natural gas. Natural gas produces half the CO2 output per kWh of electricity than that produced by coal. Not an ideal solution but something that requires no government spending and creates a large gain in solving the problem. The federal government could throw open the doors on natural gas exploration, further lowering the price of natural gas and no one would burn coal, simply because NG is cheaper. If it gets cheap enough long enough then we can see gains in conversions of planes, trains, and automobiles to replace petroleum oil.
If this US Navy technology of seawater to jet fuel can be used commercially then there is another avenue to free us from drilling for fossil fuels.
The big way that we can see CO2 emissions go down is growth in the nuclear power industry. So many claims of nuclear power being unsafe are based on old nuclear power plants that are no longer in use. We have not made nuclear reactors like Chernobyl, Fukushima, and Three Mile Island in decades. Even if we did, would not the risk of another nuclear accident pale in comparison to environmental collapse from continued fossil fuel use? Have we not learned how to deal with this nuclear waste since then? As in using waste annihilating nuclear reactors? These things will eat the nuclear waste while producing energy. They also produce life saving medicines for diagnostics and cancer treatments.
So, why hasn't the government done all of this already? Isn't the answer obvious? Because they do not believe their own fear mongering. If they did believe that burning fossil fuels would end us all then they'd do much of what I laid out.
Instead they fund "climate summits" in far away tropical resorts, fly thousands of people there, talk about how much money America needs to give to other nations to pay for they environmental damage that we supposed
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
It should be noted that the USN built a couple of nuclear powered cruisers back in the day. What we call a destroyer today is as big as a cruiser was when those nuke cruisers were afloat.
It should also be noted that the anti-nuke hysteria in the USA and much of the rest of the world has a lot to do with us not building more nuclear powered ships, static nuclear power plants, etc.
It should also be noted that I generally agree that if AGW were a serious problem, part of addressing it quickly would be to standardize a nuclear power plant design, and replace every base-load plant in North America (and, eventually, the world) with a nuke plant. Then solar/wind/tide could handle peak, and we'd be golden within 20 years....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Because of the mass immigration of Somalis etc, Sweden is disappearing. The future belongs to those who show up for it. So it's pretty unlikely that this policy will ever be carried out. Not unless Sharia mandates it.
They also equate fossil fuels with emmisions, conveniently ignoring the massive contribution of animal agriculture. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas.
People who say we'd better stop breathing because of the CO2 we exhale are just demonstrating what dumb shits they are.
Fortunately saloomy didn't say that and was merely highlighting the stupidity of claiming they were going to cut all emissions, and by definition that includes CO2 emitted by breathing.
Maybe by your definition but that's taking it to a silly extreme. What they're talking about is emissions of carbon that have long been sequestered from the short term carbon cycle. If you want to be a lawyer and take it to that extreme that's your prerogative but that's obviously not what they meant.
no long term net effect on the level of CO2
If all humans started wearing masks that captured all the CO2 they breath out then yes, there would be a net effect on the level of CO2.
You don't appear to understand that net CO2 emissions include all sources of CO2, including people breathing.
The plants don't follow people around going, "here, let me have that CO2 you're breathing out", they just draw from whatever is in the atmosphere. If that came from a coal power station the plants don't go, "Sorry, wrong C02"
Sounds like you don't understand the concept of "net" very well. In order to human and other animals to exhale CO2 plants have to extract that CO2 from the atmosphere in the first place. The net effect is zero. Once it's in the atmosphere it doesn't matter where the CO2 came from. It's in the atmosphere. Breathing doesn't change the level in the atmosphere because the CO2 was already in the atmosphere a short time before. Burning fossil fuels takes carbon that has been out of circulation for hundreds of millions of years and puts it back in circulation increasing the level of CO2 in the atmosphere.
So if people started capturing the CO2 they exhale how much difference would that make? I did a little research and found that a person exhales about 2.3 pounds or 1.04 kilograms of CO2 per day. Multiplying that by 365.25 gives about 380 kilograms per year. Multiplying that by 7 billion people gives about 2.67 gigatonnes of CO2 per year exhaled by humans. Sounds like a lot but total human emissions from fossil fuel burning and other industrial processes were 35.9 gigatonnes in 2014. So capturing human human exhales would make a slight difference but it wouldn't stop the rise of CO2 in the atmosphere, just slow it down a bit. It would be much easier just to cut back on fossil fuel combustion emissions by that much.
just demonstrating what dumb shits they are
Irony.
Irony^2
In order to human and other animals to exhale CO2 plants have to extract that CO2 from the atmosphere in the first place.
The biggest fucking irony is that I've been modded down as flamebait and you're getting away with making such fucking ludicrous statements as this.
There are no plants on the moon. Did Buzz Aldrin just stop fucking breathing while he was there?
Oh look, with one simple statement I've demonstrated how utterly full of shit you are and what a waste of my own CO2 emissions it is arguing with you.
Yes, this post can be modded flamebait because I just fucking roasted you. Now fuck off and get an education because right now you and your moderator chums are clearly just full of shit.
In other words the swedes are going to move themselves, and all pets, and livestock, and drain their tanks and pipelines and outhouses and even model airplanes out of their country? Like, not only do all living things exhale and fart and produce greenhouse gases, even plants at night can rotting on the ground do produce those gases!
Put simply. The environment sustains humans. Green house gas changes the environment. Don't mess with the environment, it keeps us alive. Stop messing with the environment and stop pumping out greenhouse gas because its stupid. Worst case scenario, when the volcanos go off, and they do that, if there is too much greenhouse gas in the atmosphere we turn the planet into Venus (the hottest planet in the solar system). There is no one that can say when the volcanos are going to go off, it could be tomorrow. There is no one who can tell you how much greenhouse gas is safe for when the volcanos go off. And if that wasn't enough, how about we just leave it better than we found it because we want a better world for our kids. Don't leave them a bigger problem than we already have. Give up this greedy insane delaying tactic and do the right thing for our children and stop now not in years to come which will leave a terrible problem for our children and could end up making everything on the planet extinct you idiots. Don't gamble with the lives of every living thing for a couple of extra dollars.
Well, I got modded as flamebait too.
But your argument about Buzz Aldrin is silly. They carried along food that had been produced on Earth. That's where the CO2 they exhaled came from. In fact human rated spacecraft have to have special equipment to extract the CO2 they exhale from the atmosphere in the spacecraft to keep it down to a reasonable level. Read the story about Apollo 13 to see how they had to jury rig a system to extract CO2 just to make it back to Earth.