U.S. and China Make Landmark Climate Deal 285
An anonymous reader writes: After extended talks on the issue of climate change, the U.S. and China have reached a landmark accord to curb emissions in the near future. The two countries are the top carbon polluters, so their actions are likely to have a major effect on world pollution levels and also set the standard for other countries. The agreement includes China's first-ever commitment to stop the growth of its emissions by 2030. They plan on shifting a big chunk of their energy production to renewables in that time. The U.S. agreed to emit 26-28% less carbon in 2025 than it did in 2005. Their efforts could spur greater enthusiasm for a new global climate agreement in 2015.
Reader jones_supa adds details of another interesting part of the U.S.-China talks:
Technology products look likely to gain more access to international markets as a result of upgrade between the U.S. and China on a 1996 tariff-eliminating trade agreement that President Obama announced Tuesday in Beijing. The agreement is expected to lower prices on a raft of new technology products by eliminating border tariffs — a price impact that's expected to be larger outside the United States, since U.S. tariffs on high-tech goods are generally lower than those overseas. "This is a win-win-win agreement for information and communication technology industries in the U.S., Europe, Japan and China, for businesses and consumers who purchase IT products and for the global economy."
Ya...Right (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone who believes China will uphold their end of the deal, raise your hand.
Thought so.
I wonder where Obama is going to plant those magic beans he just bought.
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yep, Great Lip Service Accord of 2014. (though from both parties, not just China.)
Re:Ya...Right (Score:5, Informative)
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Oh, right -- English might not be your first language. Meant both China and the US will do absolutely nothing to honor this agreement.
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Now anyone who thinks this'll pass the Senate, raise your other hand.
The Republicans are too far into the denialist camp to countenance letting this go forward, not to mention their reflexively being against everything Obama's for.
Re:Ya...Right (Score:4, Insightful)
So this'll be just like the ebola scare.
Last month is was:
GOP: Why, we dont even have a surgeon general! This POTUS is irresponsible.
Reality: Why don't have a Surgeon General? Oh ya. The Senate GOP keeps filibustering the nominees.
So in a few years it'll be:
GOP: He made a deal with China to cut pollution, but then he didn't follow through!
Reality: Because we (GOP) voted it down in the Senate!
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Except that Democrats still have the Senate for another 45 or so days, including a "lame duck" session. If they didn't want to play Political Bullshit: Washington DC Edition, Senator Reid could put it up for a vote during this session and record the Yeas and Nays right now.
But they won't, because they'd rather have the issue to beat over each other's heads in direct mailer donation requests than work the problem. Just like {"Medicare","Social Security","Tax Reform","Budgets","Appropriations Bills","Immig
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Clearly this agreement was delayed precisely because it would have cost the Democrats more seats in the election. But, given that even the Democrats in the Senate voted against Kyoto, which was tame in comparison, it has no chance of getting through.
Of course, since the President has a pen, I'm sure this won't even be submitted to the Senate, and he'll attempt to enforce it through the EPA, or some other anti-American Federal agency.
Re:Ya...Right (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a wingnut belief, not reality.
>then it's good to be against everything he is for.
This is how the wingnut Republicans actually operate. They have the minds of spoiled children.
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Which would explain the Obamacare architect saying that the American people are stupid. Liberals are elites who think they know better than everyone else, what is good for everyone, except themselves. Hence, you have Al Gore running around screaming (often literally) about global warming while living in a mansion that exceeds the average person's yearly carbon footprint every month. But he is okay, because he buys carbon offsets from himself.
Re:Ya...Right (Score:4, Informative)
You heard it here folks: cutting emissions and reducing pollution is a BAD THING.
Why? Because Obama supports it! So it must be bad!
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Well, us cutting, with the expected impact on our economy, while they don't cut, isn't really what I'd call a a Good Thing.
They are going to pay us on Tuesday, for a Hamburger today.
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You needn't worry about the hit the economy will take from the reduction in spending on healthcare costs related to pollution will be offset by the increase in actual Health of those people.
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Wrong. In fact, we've been doing it for years, and its onyl resulted in a boost the economy. New industries, new innovations, new technology, new jobs, reduced healthcare costs, etc. The entire "green energy industry" is one of the fastest growing segments of the economy.
Lets not ignore what NOT cutting pollution does to the economy, in terms of higher healthcosts, the eventual results of Global Warming negatively impacting the human race (and the economy), etc, etc. And lets also not ignore the creation of
Re:Ya...Right (Score:4, Insightful)
All the while, China will continue to open a coal plane every week until 2030. Yup, the great negotiator. Thanks for the help Obama.
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A coal plane? Now that would interesting. How do you shovel the stuff into the engines?
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Why not mandate faster changes? Like cut in half in 1 year.
Duh. Because the politicians who vote for the changes don't want to be around if they actually happen.
The only people who win from this are the Chinese, as they'll cripple the US economy and don't have to do anything for fifteen years. Fortunately, the Republicans can now ensure any such agreement is dead on arrival.
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There you go again with the "it will cripple the economy" lie again...
The green energy industry, that must be a myth to you?
Seriously. How do you even function with this level of reality denial?
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Troll rating: 1/10. Try to post something more believable next time.
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It takes time to do things.
Pass a law that says every coal-fired generating station must have new scrubbers in the stacks with spec "X" by July 2015, and you'll have every coal-fired generating station operator asking just who has already manufactured all those scrubbers and have them sitting in a warehouse ready to go, to the exact spec of every exhaust stack of every coal-fired generating station in the country.
You might get 3 of the generating stations compliant by the "deadline." Maybe.
Re:Ya...Right (Score:5, Insightful)
The same could be argued of the US. It just ignores agreements and treaties when it suits itself. Pretending that China is any worse is just borderline racism.
China has demonstrated a willingness to clean up in the past. For example, the EU introduced RoHS and China adopted it because the EU is a major customer. That's the sort of agreement that will work - a requirement to meet certain standards in order to sell stuff into a huge market.
Re:Ya...Right (Score:5, Insightful)
And it ignores that relatively basic notion that treaties of this sort tend to have binding requirements that actually allow for trade-based disincentives for breaking them.
China doesn't want increased trade tariffs as a penalty to violating the treaty. Oh, sure they'll fudge their official numbers to look like they're in compliance when they're not sometimes, but that's just how laws influence behavior anyways.
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Yeah, and then it just becomes a pissing match of tit-for-tat penalties, or they complain to the WHO so that the US can have another international body to ignore.
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Look, if both nations are in violation of a treaty, they tend to agree to dissolve it(unless politicized grandstanding about the evils the others guys are doing is more politically expedient). You're really reaching here.
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And it ignores that relatively basic notion that treaties of this sort tend to have binding requirements that actually allow for trade-based disincentives for breaking them.
Treaties of this sort haven't yet been ratified by anyone. So their requirements aren't binding because no one has actually legally agreed to it. The US President does have some authority to make executive agreements [wikipedia.org], but this sort of thing is stretching that authority IMHO and unlikely to get approval from a Republican dominated Senate (the US Senate is what ratifies treaties).
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The same could be argued of the US. It just ignores agreements and treaties when it suits itself. Pretending that China is any worse is just borderline racism.
No, it isn't racist. It is hypocritical, but race has nothing to do with it.
Additionally, China has a documented and lengthy history of completely ignoring the environment, so expecting them to continue to do so is a reasonable reaction.
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"Pretending that China is any worse is just borderline racism"
Pretending it isn't is naked historical ignorance (or deliberate revisionism).
Don't misunderstand: the US - clearly - is an arrogant asshole when it comes to international negotiations, often insisting on a "do it our way or we won't play" position. Examples abound.
But China's naked and continuing disregard for international conventions in regards to prisons, journalists, the sea, to territory, to international norms and methods has been a hallm
Re:Ya...Right (Score:4, Insightful)
China's envirnmental record is improving at a rapid pace. They're taking pollution quite seriously.
Millions of people being sick in cities where the permanent fog is actually pollution puts a large damper on your economic ambitions.
In fact, they take the environment far more seriously than we do.
Like how theyve found that water quality regulations are important, after a pig farmer dumped a few thousand dead and sick pigs into a river, that sicked thousands of people downstream. We're trying to hamstring our EPA and have people, mostly GOP, in congress talking like Clean Water and Clean Air acts are bad things. Meanwhile their equivalent put that guy in jail for something like 20 years.
So I trust them far more to hold up their end of hte deal.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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Not when it comes to CO2
Let's note both that CO2 has yet to be established as a pollutant and even if that characterization is valid, there's far more and more damaging pollutants out there than CO2.
Also, when is China going to begin to try either? Unlike the US, China's CO2 emissions haven't been declining.
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It's a greenhouse gas that is proven to cause global warming.
That's not the definition of pollution. Causing actual harm is. At least, the EPA had that part right.
A huge percentage of China's pollution and CO2 emissions are due to consumption in the US and other developed nations.
Irrelevant. It's still Chinese-based pollution.
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Be a denier, or be a believer. If you read this from the source itself, tell me if it makes any scientific sense at all. I believe in science. The problem is there are too many idiots in the mix that confuse actual facts.
http://www.climatecentral.org/... [climatecentral.org]
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I really have no idea what you're talking about, and I suspect you don't either.
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China's envirnmental record is improving at a rapid pace.
Well, that's nice if true, but they have a long ways to go before they're anywhere near the US.
In fact, they take the environment far more seriously than we do.
If they do, and it's not evident to me that this elevated level of concern exists in their government, then that's because they have reason to, due to the massive pollution which occurs in China, but not in the US.
Like how theyve found that water quality regulations are important, after a pig farmer dumped a few thousand dead and sick pigs into a river, that sicked thousands of people downstream.
The US has enforcement. Why should the US be as concerned over water quality when these sorts of water quality problems don't happen in the US? Shouldn't we all be concerned about actual problems first?
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Coal consumption already leveled out:
http://cleantechnica.com/2014/... [cleantechnica.com]
http://www.chinafaqs.org/libra... [chinafaqs.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
The US and China are signing this deal because they can see that they are already headed in the right direction and they know that renewables investment is good for the economy.
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Are you saying that because the Chinese are inscrutable and sneaky?
Everyone who believes the US will uphold their end of the deal, raise your hand.
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China is already the world's largest producer of renewable energy. (378 GW in 2013.)
And unlike Western nations that govern by consensus, China will turn on a dime if it sees the benefit on it. They shut down the factories and took half the cars off the road so the air would be clear for the Olympics. They can do that any time they want.
The benefit to China is cheap power and complete energy independence. The price of renewable energy is dropping sharply, so they no longer have to turn to coal and oil to fue
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Congratulations on getting a +5 mod on a completely content-free post.
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Really? (Score:2)
Re:Really? (Score:4, Interesting)
The republican solution to fixing everything is to make it cheaper for business, particularly big business, by levelling the playing field with places like China, completely ignoring that we would then be marinating in our own pollution and likely lowering our standard of living even further to do so. Still, it has been seen time and time again that you can get people to vote against their best interest if you spend enough money on it.
My own solution to try to equalize things a bit is to start to gradually tariff/tax things that are made with less rigid standards in the United States. For instance, if an Iphone is made with working conditions we would not tolerate and a lot of pollution is created in the process then we tariff that enough so that it is possible for the US to compete. Similarly things like coal plants that likely cause a lot of secondary health problems, particularly if they don't have up to date technology, should have to pay for the external health costs. That way cleaner tech can fairly compete. Society as a whole pays the total bill. It makes no sense to save money one place only to be forced to spend a total amount that is greater.
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The left used to love coal miners, now they hate them. This is why they'll continue to lose votes until they just fade away into irrelevance.
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I suspect that some would think that externalizing all possible costs is a legitimate path to higher profitability, and therefore a Good Thing under Capitalism as practices in the US. However I also suspect they'd be very careful who they would actually say that to.
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So, you say we should ditch those jobs that can pay up to about $95K/yr....and put those workers all on the dole (I'm hoping you're not thinking of cutting their pay too)....and have them sit on their asses, producing nothing?
And where does the magic pile of money to pay for THIS come from?
Hell, how do "I" get on this gravy train
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They don't seem to be upholding the agreement to not interfere politically with Hong Kong for 50 years
There is still a lot more democracy in HK today than there was when the British ran the place. The British didn't allow elections until 1992 (year 94 of their 99 year lease). Even then, only half the seats were elected, the other half were appointed.
Quite the poker player (Score:4, Insightful)
So China promises to stop increasing by 2030, and the US promises to cut ~26% by 2025.
That's powerful negotiation right there. I wish I were discussing my next raise with this administration.
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It's like coming home and having your teenage son tell you he just traded his 2000 pickup (in good condition) for a "really cool" 1990 Camaro that just needs a little body work and some engine work. And oh, by the way, can he use your car until he gets the tires replaced?
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Well, he wanted too. :-)
Re:Quite the poker player (Score:5, Insightful)
China's producing 7.2 tons per person. The US is producing 16.5 tons per person.
http://www.bbc.com/news/scienc... [bbc.com]
The US is committing to cutting its emissions to 14.1 tons per person (down 27% from 19.3 in 2005). That's still 2x China's current level. Why on earth would China agree to forever have half the emissions per capita of the US?
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Given the assumption that AGW is an existential crisis, everyone is going to have to reduce emissions to zero in the near term (near being defined as within half a century).
At that point, we'll all be at the same emission level.
Note that if AGW is NOT an existential threat, it's probably not important to bother with landmark agreements that won't accomplish anything meaningful anyway.
Re:Quite the poker player (Score:5, Insightful)
Note that if AGW is NOT an existential threat, it's probably not important to bother with landmark agreements that won't accomplish anything meaningful anyway.
So, we should never have any international treaties about anything that's not an existential threat? Got it. Let's dump that pesky Geneva Convention, the human race will survive whether or not prisoners are tortured. Let's also drop those treaties around the use of space - if we end up with satellites in the same orbital slot, interfering with each other's signals, it won't result in the end of the human race.
Ever consider that something that's not absolutely perfect in every possible way could still be an improvement over the status quo? A car doesn't get you from point A to point B instantly, does that mean we should just walk everywhere? Of course not.
Re:Quite the poker player (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, this is a brilliant line of reasoning from the crowd that brought us the "have scientists considered the sun, yet?" argument.
No. It's never been an existential crisis. There are 2 kinds of people claiming that, 1. A few non-scientist ultra-enviornmentalists attempting to make over-the-top rhetorical arguments and 2. Idiots on the right wing who find that strawman easy to take apart.
The actual analyses of climate changes effects [ipcc.ch] show an unpleasant, but not extinction level, result that's far more economically expensive than changeover to renewables would ever be.
So, why bother if we're not jumping immediately and completely? Because 3 more degrees C by 2100 is a lot better in terms of consequences than 5 more degrees C by 2100.
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The actual analyses of climate changes effects show an unpleasant, but not extinction level, result that's far more economically expensive than changeover to renewables would ever be.
Unless the analyses are wrong on this count, say due to institutional bias.
Because 3 more degrees C by 2100 is a lot better in terms of consequences than 5 more degrees C by 2100.
And 1C is even better. There's really no point to this discussion until we have an idea what sort of climate change is likely. The climate models have been notably inaccurate, erring on the side of alarmism.
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16.5 tons times 300 million people = four billion nine hundred fifty million
1.375 billion people times 7.2 tons = nine billion seven hundred seventy million four hundred thousand
Re:Quite the poker player (Score:5, Interesting)
Those are silly numbers because they are only measurements of domestic emissions.
Around half of China's carbon emissions are because of productions of goods that are exported to mainly USA and the EU. You could say that while USA and EU are importing from China, they are exporting their emissions to China.
If you take that into account, USA and EU are much worse per capita.
I am in Sweden, which has one of the strongest economies in the EU, having got mostly unscathed out of the recent Euro crisis (Sweden still has its own currency).
Sweden has one of the lowest carbon emissions per capita in the EU, but because the economy is so strong, Swedish citizens are spending more money on imported goods than other EU citizens and are therefore among the worst polluters in the EU if you take trade into account.
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Secondly, only a fool will normalize on per capita. China has a very slow population growth and yet, they have more than doubled their output over the last 15 years.
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"China's producing 7.2 tons per person. The US is producing 16.5 tons per person."
Chinese GDP per capita: $6807.
US GDP per capita: $53142
China is producing 1.05 kg of emissions per $1 GDP, or put another way, China's generating $945 in value for every ton of emissions.
US is producing 0.31kg per $1 GDP, or $3220/ton - about 3x the efficiency.
So fuck China, and fuck the Leftist/Eco narrative that the US is the bad guy, and China the 'poor struggling industrializing country'. The US is producing 3x the wealth
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>China's producing 7.2 tons per person. The US is producing 16.5 tons per person.
Per capita comparisons are ridiculous since a large chunk of China is still non-industrialized. There's a reason why China and India always focus on per-capita numbers - by having lots of poor people living in non-developed areas, they can get lots of extra quota for their highly polluting power plants and factories.
A better comparison is CO2 emitted per kWh produced or per dollar (or RMB) of GDP.
That said, at least China is
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If we unify Africa into a single nation it has more people too, and will become the biggest polluter on the planet as well, as big as China or the US.
China is a bunch of culturally tied regional provinces that share a common culture, but individually would have pollution levels on par with smaller countries.
It's sheer size is the only reason China has a pollution level higher than the US.
China has nearly 1/3, 33%, of the Earth's total population.
The US has only 1/20th, 5%, yet our total polution outputs are
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The joke is on China, really. Obama has no chance in getting any CO2 emission legislation passed with a Republican Congress in charge, while China just went on record saying that they're at least going to attempt to reduce their emissions in the future. That's something that they were never willing to say before.
That China statement will come back to haunt them in future climate change negotiations, while Obama can just blame those "evil obstructionist Republicans" for not meeting his end of the bargain.
Clean Air Act (Score:2)
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China just went on record saying that they're at least going to attempt to reduce their emissions in the future. That's something that they were never willing to say before.
Not so. It looks like there was already some momentum. Here's an article from June: China, the world's biggest emitter, will set a total cap on its CO2 emissions when its next five-year plan comes into force in 2016, He Jiankun, chairman of China's Advisory Committee on Climate Change, told a conference in Beijing. - http://in.reuters.com/article/... [reuters.com]
It is good to see that the momentum is continuing to build.
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So China promises to stop increasing by 2030, and the US promises to cut ~26% by 2025.
Yes, and by 2030 the USA will still emit more carbon per person than China.
(Today the USA emits about 14 tons per person, compared to China's 7 tons.)
So yeah, you're right, that is some powerful negotiation right there as China is making a much bigger sacrifice...
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(Today the USA emits about 14 tons per person, compared to China's 7 tons.)
So yeah, you're right, that is some powerful negotiation right there as China is making a much bigger sacrifice...
Are you sure tons per capita is the appropriate metric? Stats from 2010: Trinidad and Tobago (38 tons per capita), Aruba (22.8), Luxembourg (21.4). AGW evil-doers, or bit players in the greater scheme of things? And no, I'm not proposing that the USA is a bit player.
China has a population 4.3x greater than the USA, in a land area slightly smaller (3.7 million sq mi vs 3.8 million sq. mi). Looking at tons of carbon per square mile, China is currently emitting carbon at over twice the rate of the USA.
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Personally, I would do tons per capita normalized by standard of living. That is, how much is emitted per person to maintain a given standard of living.
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Those numbers are all well and good, except that China has 5x as many people as the US, so their overall emissions are still 2.5x as much as the US. There's plenty of room for both to improve without major sacrifice.
Aren't statistics games fun? You can make the numbers emphasize anything you want, even though they are still the same!
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Why do you feel that there should be a per capita comparison? Your comparing apples and oranges, so the amount of "sacrifice" isn't as you claim.
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China is still on the up side of the curve, rapidly industrializing. The US reached the peak and is on the way down the other side. China is basically committing to match the US's trajectory in the future, i.e. peaking at about the same level and then reducing fairly quickly.
Since the US had the benefit of hitting that peak at minimal cost, China wants the same. If we want them to do it faster there will have to be some other concessions.
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WORST DEAL GOING (Score:2)
A Contrary View (Score:3)
Many/most posts on this subject are on how terrible a deal this is for America and China getting off Scott free.
Or on the other hand, China's emissions per citizen is much lower than America's. So basically America can only agree to cut emissions if our historic advantage is preserved when negotiating with other countries. We got to polluted at much higher levels for decades, but now that emerging economies are polluting as much or more, well all that s**t has to come to a stop.
If America wants the world to have a better environment then it needs to lead by example – not demand we get the best deal. China is developing renewables at a much faster clip than America, but it still has a lot of ground to catch up on a per-citizen basis in economics. It is a foregone conclusion that China will pollute more than America in the short run while it catches up economically. To expect them to stay behind because we don't like it, even though we basically did the same or worse when adjusted for population just won't fly. As China becomes more affluent you can expect pollution levels to decrease as an enriched middle-class demands a better environment. Yes there will be damage in the short run, but this is probably unavoidable given political realities. Better to do something than nothing.
I'm fine with being mad at China for human right's abuses or lack of free speech, but this whining is really about we-got-our-nut, screw everyone else if they try to catch up.
If you really want to save the world, push for Nuclear-Fusion research. We know this is a solvable problem if we just have the political will to tackle it. Others like Lockheed might get there before ITER, but in general this needs a Manhattan project level off commitment to be certain it is solved, not just wait and hope the free market takes care of it, because you know in the meantime we are still burning oil and coal.
Re:A Contrary View (Score:4, Funny)
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Kyoto was and effort to keep carbon dioxide from becoming pollution.
How can a trace gas that's essential for plant growth be 'pollution'?
Next you'll be telling us that oxygen is pollution and we must elimate it from the atmosphere.
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Or you can expect our pollution levels to rise as our economy spirals down the drain. Works both ways.
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I'm fine with being mad at China for human right's abuses or lack of free speech, but this whining is really about we-got-our-nut, screw everyone else if they try to catch up.
If you're okay with that, then you should be okay with giving that free pass to every other nation. Oh, and was the playing field uneven back when the US was a developing nation? Why was China unable to go through the process at that time?
Yes, the US should clean up it's portion of the mess, but China should in no way get a free pass to piss in the commons.
Effectless and effortless (Score:2)
USA pledges to reduce carbon emissions compared to 2005 levels, when their emissions were the highest ever in history.
USA has already lowered their emissions by half the 2025 goal just from the slowing the economy after the 2008 bank crash.
Meanwhile, Europe has pledged to reduce emissions by 40% by 2030 compared to 1990's levels..
If USA would reduce their emissions to their 1990 levels, then that would be a ~20% reduction from 2005 levels, and 40% from that is still a long way to go.
Sorry, but this US-China
At what price? (Score:2)
No effect (Score:2)
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Obama pulled a "Scotty" (Score:2)
The year 2005 as start year was the peak coal-electricity year. Abundant, cheap methane discoveries have ead to switch over a third of electricity generation to natural gas and cut CO2 15% since 2005.
Another 13% to goal. New coal plant regulations and the car mileage laws willl reach most of that.
that's easy (Score:2)
We just need to keep sabotaging our economy, and we can easily do better than that. Bush and Obama both demonstrated how to do that very effectively.
Mitch McConnell pulls a Boehner (Score:2)
uh no, to both of you. (Score:2)
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OTOH, you will note that HISTORICALLY, utilities earned 1-2% profit margins and now, earn 10-20%. Likewise, the executives in private utilities are now some of the HIGHER paid executives. OTOH, public utilities have low-end pay for their executive
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For everyone in the western US that is paying $0.10/KWh or less, there are 5 people in California or the Northeast paying $0.18/KWh or more. Or Alaska and Hawaii that are paying $0.20/KWh and up. Real Data rather than numbers pulled from ass [eia.gov].
Yes, on average, it looks like energy production is quite cheap. But, there are people getting squeezed pretty hard if you look a bit deeper, and it's usually the people that can't afford the additional pressure.
another bad idea (Score:2)
Note that Keystone will NOT bring anymore tar sand than the trains. OTOH, with the above deal, it WILL drop our oil imports, which will lower the price of oil, which will make tar sands uneconomical. In addition, at the same time, it will make for cleaner air, and far less C
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Re: another bad idea (Score:2)
With a deal cut that will lower America's demand for oil each year, then oil prices will continue downwards to the point where tar sands are NOT economical.
Economic Regulatory Administration (Score:2)