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Many Nations Pin Climate Hopes On China, India As Hopes For Trump Fade (reuters.com)
Twelve readers share a Reuters report: Many countries are pinning their hopes on China and India to lead efforts to slow climate change amid a growing sense of resignation that U.S. President Donald Trump will either withdraw from a global pact or stay and play a minimal role. Delegates at the May 8-18 negotiations in Bonn on a detailed "rule book" for the 2015 Paris Agreement, the first U.N. talks since Trump took office, say there is less foreboding than when Washington last broke with global climate efforts in 2001. Trump doubts global warming has a human cause and says he will decide on a campaign threat to "cancel" the Paris Agreement, the first to bind all nations to set goals to curb emissions, after a group of Seven summit in Italy on May 26-27. "The time when one big player could affect the whole game is past," said Ronald Jumeau, climate ambassador for the Seychelles. "There would be a void without the U.S., but China and India seem to be increasing their effort." Big emitters led by China, the European Union and India have reaffirmed their commitment to Paris, which seeks to phase out greenhouse gas emissions this century by shifting to clean energies. By contrast, Trump wants to favor U.S. coal.
You know you have screwed things up when you have to look at China and India, two countries that have long been considered backwards when it comes to using renewable sources of energy, for a brighter tomorrow. Kudos to China and India to realize the problem and starting to get their act together. I mean, c'mon, look at India and the problems it has and it is still doing something about it. So much about us being the superior.
I'm glad to see it. Trump is a regressive relic of an era of disinformation and anti-science, anti-problem-solving "I can do no wrong" ethos. That has to die.
We live in a connected world. Protectionism is no protection in the long or short term. We have to address these issues as a global community, and that means making the economics of any solution apply universally as much as possible. Or it won't work.
The US can pay carbon taxes all day long but unless China and India get a serious investment in non-burning energy sources, it's a wasted effort.
So, India, China, other nations.... LEAD ON. Innovate, invest, and show the world that greedy old-coal financial interests aren't more important than the planet itself.
The amount of pollution is negligible compared to China. Have you been to China? They are in no way trying to fix this. The air is thick and metallic tasting. The only time they fix it is when they shut the factories down for the celebration of one of their communist holidays.
Zoid.com
"China and India to lead efforts to slow climate change "
We've sure seen the results of China's forward looking environmental policies. Especially in scenic untouched places like Baotou, and in the pristine air of Beijing.
So, good luck with that.
Climate change caused by man is accepted by 90% of scientists. The fact that a few claim otherwise is unimportant. Look at the morons who perjured themselves before congress claiming "cigarette smoking does not cause cancer". You can watch them on YouTube, and it happened in the '90's.
There's till flat Earthers too, but thinking creatures dismiss them; just like we dismiss you. Sorry.
I suppose if we see them actually do anything meaningful, then we in the US can look in on it again.
In the US, we've already made great strides in cleaner air...time to sit back and let the rest of the world and the worst polluters make some serious changes, and only then we start risking our economy on overregulation of energy industries that power our economy in so many ways.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
The problem is that although solar and wind are decent peak generators, people have been eschewing clean base load generation for decades. Natural gas, nuclear and hydro power, even wind power has been under attack from all forms of "nature freaks" the only thing that doesn't piss anyone off today is solar and coal because we already have coal and they don't understand the environmental impact of silicon production.
People that support Greenpeace and similar alt-environment organizations need to understand that people aren't willing or capable to go back to nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyles.
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Didn't we obtain, after only ten years, the largest hybrid electric car fleet in the world (okay, second to japan according to wikipedia) without any government interference? Isn't solar panel technology taking off in this country, especially as people have them installed on their roofs. Aren't the local state governments still offering subsidies so as to encourage the adoption of solar panel roofs? Aren't there hundreds more americans trying to 'do their part' by recycling more, eating local foods (which can reduce CO2 emissions since the produce doesn't have to be transported thousands of miles) and don't I see more wind farms popping up every single year?
Who ever said we can only fix environmental problems by electing the 'right' president? We don't need the federal government to make a difference, we can (and I would argue are) collectively working to solve this problem through the free market mechanisms available to us!
Now excuse me while i get in my honda with ridiculously good gas mileage, and drive to the local farmers market to buy organic local produce, while i drink my Soylent meal that took 90% less CO2 to produce than any conventional meal, and then go home to my apartment that is cooled by a sun roof and electricity supplied by wind power
When it comes to risking our economy with overregulation, then yes, I say we follow and let someone else "lead" for awhile.
I think it IS time to let the other countries of the world show for real that they are willing to take the economic risks to do this and not us.
The US has already cleaned up its act FAR more than the leading polluters in the world have done, so why not hang back and bit and let's see if China really means what it says on this commitment.
If China actually *does* cut their pollution down and take the drastic steps required to do this in any reasonable period of time, then the US should take another look at joining in.
But no reason for us to be almost the only one that self imposes these regulations on ourselves and putting our economy at risk vs the other countries in the world that only pay lip service to these agreements.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Saying hopes for Trump on climate issues "fade" is implying they were ever there to begin with. Was anyone ever that uninformed to think that Trump was going to be some environmental crusader?
If you want Trump to do anything about climate change, get behind nuclear to replace coal for base load power generation, which I'd imagine he'd support. A large number of environmentalists have, for many decades now, been hurting their own cause by blocking nuclear at every opportunity, allowing perfect to be the enemy of good.
Of course, it won't happen, as some environmentalist would apparently rather see the apocalypse occur than build more nuke plants. Many of those people have even been going after *hydro* in recent years, which is about as clean as large-scale power generation is going to get. It weakens environmental arguments when practical solutions seem to be rejected out of hand.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
It seems money is your primary motivating factor. That doesn't speak well of your intelligence. Your desires to deregulate would negatively impact large numbers of people, would increase sickness and death, and would increase pollution.
Go fuck yourself.
Batteries are far from clean as well, the cheapest ones we have are full of lead and the best ones we have are full of lithium and all have a lifespan of 3-5 years.
Natural gas is great as auxiliary power and burns pretty close to optimal.
Nuclear can be clean if we wouldn't worry so much about the rogue employee running of with a nearly useless yet personally lethal portion of weapons grade uranium. We're throwing away significant amounts of fuel because of some Cold War fears and wasting more on litigation than it would cost in the first place.
Any amount of energy we generate is going to have some impact. Everybody knows coal and oil is not the way to go but the point is that everyone equally opposes any alternative.
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It is sad to hear this sort of conversation. Climate change is not about "us vs. them" or whose turn it is, it's about climate change, a global issue and how the impacts are already devastating today in many parts of the world and will be more so for our children.
What if China didn't do anything (they are waking up to it, fortunately)? Should we just let everything go to hell then?
Everybody needs work hard on this issue, right now. We don't have time for petty bickering. Stragglers will have to be influenced to catch up.
And no, US is not "almost the only one" self-imposing regulations. Furthermore, in the long run climate change would be far far more costly than preventative measures.
Why SHOULD the US shoulder the responsibility, when we aren't even the worst polluter?
America burns about 3 tonnes of coal per capita each year (900 million tonnes last year for 320 million people). China burns a little over two tonnes of coal per capita each year (2.9 billion tonnes last year for 1.4 billion people). India burns about the same amount of coal as America does to supply 1.3 billion people, about half a tonne per capita.
America IS the worst polluter of the three, and that doesn't even begin to take the oil and gas the US also burns into consideration. Americans use over twice as much energy per capita as the rest of the world and much of that energy is derived from fossil fuel.
the government heavily interfered in the form of massive tax breaks for hybrids and for developing hybrids. Like most things that truly matter and are really difficult (like space travel, communication, and Basic Research) nothing happens until the government steps in because it's not profitable enough otherwise.
And you can't fix the environment with a president who is openly hostile to the EPA. Poor people still can't drink the water in Flint, MI you know? And your Honda's good millage & clean emissions is dwarfed by the number of Trucks calling themselves SUVs on the road.
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