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Natural Gas is Now Getting in the Way; US Carbon Emissions Increase by 3.4% (arstechnica.com)
AmiMoJo shares a report: "The US was already off track in meeting its Paris Agreement targets. The gap is even wider headed into 2019." That's the dire news from Rhodium Group, a research firm that released preliminary estimates of US carbon emissions in 2018. Though the Trump administration said it would exit the Paris Agreement in 2017, the US is still bound by the agreement to submit progress reports until 2020. But the administration has justified regulatory rollbacks since then, claiming that regulation from the US government is unnecessary because emissions were trending downward anyway. But it appears that emissions have increased 3.4 percent in 2018 across the US economy, the second-largest annual increase in 20 years, according to Rhodium Group's preliminary data. (2010, when the US started recovering from the recession, was the largest annual increase in the last two decades.)
This reversal of course -- the first increase in emissions in three years -- came from a few sources. Carbon emissions from the US electricity sector increased by 1.9 percent, largely because the installation of new natural gas plants has outpaced coal retirements. Cheap natural gas has been credited with killing coal, which is a dirtier fossil fuel in terms of emissions. But natural gas is a fossil fuel, too, and burning more natural gas than is needed to simply replace coal will result in more carbon emissions. But electricity wasn't the main culprit. Transportation was.
This reversal of course -- the first increase in emissions in three years -- came from a few sources. Carbon emissions from the US electricity sector increased by 1.9 percent, largely because the installation of new natural gas plants has outpaced coal retirements. Cheap natural gas has been credited with killing coal, which is a dirtier fossil fuel in terms of emissions. But natural gas is a fossil fuel, too, and burning more natural gas than is needed to simply replace coal will result in more carbon emissions. But electricity wasn't the main culprit. Transportation was.
Last time I checked, we're done with the Paris agreement in 2020 (specifically on Nov 4). By trying to slip it through as an executive thing (to skip Senate ratification as a binding approval), Obama allowed the next President (Trump) to kill it, and kill it he did.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_withdrawal_from_the_Paris_Agreement
I drive an econo-box and rent my home. I've never flown to anywhere exotic, and I eat way more chicken than beef. I thought I was living the American dream, but now I feel so ashamed. Thank you for enlightening me.
You have completely left reality. The USA is still many times lower in population but 2nd overall and the highest per capita in the world.
Country 2016 kton CO2
China 10432751.35
USA 5011686.62
India 2533638.05
Maybe you are fine with shitting in the pool but not all of us want to live like you do: surrounded by filth.
You're going to cover the poor's medical bills when the air becomes worse than in China and "drinking" water is at best available in supermarkets anymore? Or is that part of the win-win situation where they die off early to take pressure off the job and housing market?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.