Slashdot Mirror
Governments 'Not on Track' To Cap Temperatures at Below 2 Degrees: UN (reuters.com)
Governments are not on track to meet a goal of the 2015 Paris agreement of capping temperatures well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) before the end of the century, a United Nations official said on Sunday ahead of climate-change talks in Bangkok this week. From a report: Patricia Espinosa, head of the Executive Secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which steers the climate talks, said both the public and private sector need to act with urgency to avoid "catastrophic effects". The Paris climate agreement, adopted by almost 200 nations in 2015, set a goal of limiting warming to "well below" a rise of 2 degrees C above pre-industrial times while "pursuing efforts" for the tougher goal of 1.5 degrees C. "1.5 is the goal that is needed for many islands and many countries that are particularly vulnerable to avoid catastrophic effects. In many cases it means the survival of those countries. With the pledges we have on the table now we are not on track to achieve those goals," Espinosa told Reuters in a telephone interview on Sunday in Bangkok.
And if we had spent the R&D money back in the '70s to boost renewable, sources of energy that don't emit greenhouse gases, we'd be much further along the process.
If we'd actually tax companies for their emissions and the effects to mitigate those emissions, we'd be a lot further along.
In general, too many places have done too little because ti would cost those in power money, even though it was other individuals that ultimately shoulder the consequences.
Actually, we CAN stop it now. We just have to quit adding fossil fuel plants, esp coal, and then add only clean ; wind, solar, hydro, Geothermal, nuke. But that will not happen.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The French government did great in picking a nuclear energy policy in the 70s and using highly standardized reactors. Far better than the mess in the US or Asia, where every plant is a white elephant.
The Australian coal mining thing is not what it seems, actually more likely a scam. So borrow tons of money, especially from government to build new coal mine and power station, build it all up, sell it and then when it can't not compete because of pricing pressure from natural gas and watch it all go belly up because of course the profit comes from developing and selling it and then betting it will go bankrupt (privatise the profit and socialise the loss). No sure how far that model spreads into Indonesia or Poland but it likely is an element, just the normal psychopathic way of doing business.
Yeah, coal is screwed and Trump was playing pump and dump with his buddies (talking up coal so his buddies so sell out before it all collapses and the public ends up wearing the bankruptcies). It is pretty clear now, that most of the attacks on renewables had no basis in reality and were straight up PR=B$ attacks paid for by the fossil fuellers to keep the profits up and fuck everyone and everything else.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Except in Australia where a really advanced solar panel manufacturing tech came out of the CSIRO, the Conservative Prime Minister refused to spend Any money developing it for domestic markets, so the scientist took his patents to South Korea, helping them cut Australia largely out of the solar panel manufacturing industry.
China increased about 3.1 per cent in the first half of 2018 compared with the same period last year. The main driver of that was coal-fired power generation. Figures from the National Bureau of Statistics show a leap of 9.4 per cent in electricity use across the same period.
So electricity is up 9% but coal is only up 3%...
Coal's % of electricity is decreasing. Other sources are rising twice as fast as coal.
As we know from your previous comments, only America is entitled to use so much coal.
You remember , that country with twice the per capita CO2 emissions.
I think that he means USA produces more carbon dioxide per capita than China.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
We're already at stage 4? That developed quickly, just weeks ago we still had discussions in phase 2.
For those unfamiliar with them, the 4 stages of climate denial:
1. There is no climate change.
2. Ok, there is a climate change, but it's normal, not man made.
3. Ok, it is man made, but it's been warmer before, so no problem.
4. Ok, it is a problem, but it's too late anyway.
The beauty is that, no matter what stage we're on, we needn't do anything about it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
What benefited France most of all was a policy of simply not listening to yammerheads and just plowing ahead with construction. That's how we need to approach it: develop a legal principle that "I don't like it" does not give you standing to argue court cases over technology.
We did but then Greenpeace decided that "nuclear is bad" and so we're now stuck with gas, oil and other options that are way worse.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Since when is it the government's job
Do some research on the amount of money spent on the oil wars in the middle east. The government did the oil industry's bidding.