EU Aims To Be 'Climate Neutral' By 2050 (bbc.com) 205
AmiMoJo writes: The European Union says it is aiming to become the first major economy to go 'climate neutral' by 2050. Under the plan, emissions of greenhouse gases after that date would have to be offset by planting trees or by burying them underground. Scientists say that net-zero emissions by 2050 are needed to have a fighting chance of keeping global temperatures under 1.5C this century. The EU says the move will also cut premature air pollution deaths by 40%. The EU says that this can be done with existing technologies such as solar and wind energy which would have to be ramped up to provide 80% of electricity. Energy efficiency measures such as home insulation would also need to be boosted to reduce energy consumption by half by the middle of the century.
Interesting approach (Score:5, Funny)
have to be offset by planting trees or by burying them underground.
How does burying trees underground help reduce emissions?
Re:Interesting approach (Score:5, Funny)
have to be offset by planting trees or by burying them underground.
How does burying trees underground help reduce emissions?
If they bury the trees, they can't be cut down to be burned, duh!
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I think the moderation system is broken. I was being sarcastic--going for funny. The summary's grammar is vague, but if you read between the lines "burying them underground" refers to the greenhouse gasses.
That's how I read your comment, but maybe others' sense of sarcasm is off.
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It's even funnier that the summary's grammatical error accidentally describes reality.
Meta-irony, if you will.
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Even then I'm not sure about that idea. I can't imagine that it's very cost effective to do, and forestry and excavating a burial cavern are going to rely on the kinds of heavy machinery that will still probably run on fossil fuels.
If you're going to go that route, it seems far less expensive to grow a bunch of biomass and make a slurry that could be pumped undergro
RFTA - "burying the gases underground" (Score:2)
Ambiguous summary.
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Trees are made of carbon sucked out of the atmosphere. Burying trees is an effective carbon sequestration strategy, if you bury them deep enough.
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By burying them underground, the climate conscious trees can more easily start a grass roots movement to affect real change. Just look at how well it worked for Bernie Sanders!
Brings new meaning to "feel the Bern" doesn't it?
Assuming.... (Score:5, Insightful)
There will even be an EU in 2050.
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Well seeing how much of a pain Brexit is, with UK having been only mostly in the EU (kept its own currency) I expect most other nations after seeing the trouble it is, probably will not want to bother to leave the EU.
Re:Assuming.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Brexit has pretty much killed off the other "leave" movements in the EU. Everyone has seen that the milk and honey fantasy was impossible. They know their politicians won't do any better, and see how the EU has presented a united, strong front the whole way through.
There will be some economic harm, but in some ways Brexit has actually been a benefit to the EU. As well as discouraging anyone else thinking of leaving, it's created an opportunity to reform and move ahead without Britain holding it back.
Re:Assuming.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Everyone should have known that the fantasy wasn't going to happen. A bit like America i think in that a lot of the voters were deliberately ignorant and easily swayed by simplistic platitudes. Interesting also that the most brexit votes came from England and most remain votes from Scotland and Wales.
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"killed off the other "leave" movements" ?
Italy is cheering the Brexit move. Southern Italy in particular is suffering from economic demands from the EU. Greece has its own problems with the EU. Within each EU state there are entities that do not benefit from the Union. Keeping Europe together is a delicate balancing act.
One factor that may tend to keep them together is increasing Russian aggression.
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That's a problem the EU still has. They have a shared currency, but not a shared monetary policy. Any member country who racks up debt in Euros (something which back when they had their own currency would've caused their currency to devalue) essentially
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I am not following you. Brexit was democratically voted in, and also the EU accepted that democratic election result.
Democracy doesn't always get the best idea, but just generally influences the people will.
At some age, a teen is allowed to legally leave their parent/guardians home. Most of the time when they do it at the age limit, it is really a bad idea, and the child will often suffer as they face the realities of the real world. Other people who know him, and realize that he isn't spending all night p
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I am not following you. Brexit was democratically voted in, and also the EU accepted that democratic election result.
It depends on your definition of democracy. The UK is a representative democracy. Our representatives consistently did not do Brexit because only a minority of their electorate actually wanted it.
The Brexit legislation was, apparently, deliberately badly written. so that an undemocratic % of the electorate could (and did) get their way. Only 3/5 of the electorate actually voted for this. That is less than the 50% plus 1 that would have made this a democratic decision.
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She seems to have the idea that the best way to keen the extreme right happy is to do what they want.
Having aspirations towards being a decent human being, I say that the alt-right, extreme conservatives and the wannabe fascists can stick their notions where the sun doesn't shine!
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Lets change the ethnicities, lets say you are an ethnic Tibetan marrying a Han in Tibet. Clearly collaboration with genocide. That doesn't mean you shouldn't allow it, but you would undeniably be helping along the process China initiated to destroy your culture and ethnicity.
The processes initiated in Europe post-WW2 to pacify the European nations are not much different. They are softer, more sophisticated processes ... after two world wars there might even be some justification in pushing them, but it's ju
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I'm from Appalachia, and last time I talked with anyone back there--last night, now that I think of it--they told me everything was fine. No mention of death squads or re-education camps or anything like that.
I know you're just making shit up (and not being terribly good at stealth re-definition of a term that's quite well-defined already, thanks very much), but I'll ask you for a citation in any case, just to see what you might come up with.
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Europe in total war with whom? Internally? No. The animosity between modern European nations is like the animosity between cities with American football teams;
Yes, internally. Europe wars with itself. Pick up a history book.
Funny that you use an analogy of football teams. Europeans literally riot and sack cities based in soccer matches.
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In 2050 Putin will be 98 years old, so I'm not so sure how mysterious it would be if he died before then.
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There's plenty of data showing there was Russian influence helping fuel the Brexit vote. No one said there wasn't anti-EU sentiment extant, but outside influence inflamed and amplified it into the Brexit vote. Even many who voted for an exit from the EU are starting to wonder if they've been hoodwinked.
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Here you go. [lmgtfy.com]
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talk is cheap (Score:5, Insightful)
In addition to the EU, Rwanda also launched a climate change mitigation plan today Rwanda launches national plan for Paris Agreement on climate change [newtimes.co.rw]
Another day, another set of cheap pronouncements.
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The EU is already doing a lot to reduce its emissions. The much hyped increase in the last year is just a correction after the economic downturn of 2008, but the trend is still firmly downwards and it's undeniable that a lot of money and regulation is going in to addressing the issue.
Also note that the targets are set by each country, so if the EU really wanted to meet them it could just set easy ones. Most EU countries were ambitious and set their goals low enough to be a challenge, to create the impetus t
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Well the US has a few differences. The main one being that it's starting from a much worse position in terms of per-capita emissions, and a lot of the big and relatively easy wins like improving buildings or installing basic energy saving tech was done in Europe long ago. Even now the average European has a much more efficient house/workplace and vehicle.
The US also had more coal mining operations that closed recently, helping it go downwards. It also pumped a lot of money into the economy to get out of the
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I read that the EU is close to reporting that my country, Canada, is nowhere close to meeting it's Paris commitments. So basically, our real world performance has been no different from the US, but Trud
Cat (Score:3)
The European Union says it is aiming to become the first major economy to go 'climate neutral'
You mean first major country. The EU is a federal government with member states, and by 2050 will have grown enough in power will be similar to the Unites States government, with member countries little more than anachronistic states like New Jersey and Idaho.
It took 150 years for this in the US, and that's with a constitution in theory granting the government limited powers and no others. 30 more years for the EU is very doable.
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The EU is *not* a state, not legally nor actually.
Rgds
Damon
Semantic pedantry (Score:2)
In that aspect it is analogous to the Union of United States of America.
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But (and this is important when applying for some funding, that's how I know) it is *not* a state in its own right, whether or not it walks and quacks a bit like that duck...
Rgds
Damon
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The EU is nothing like the Federal US government. It's closest US based relative would be the articles of confederatation the US tried before abandoning it as ineffective.
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Not going to happen without Nuclear (Score:3)
Re:Not going to happen without Nuclear (Score:4)
It all depends on what they replace them with. They could shut down old designs from the '70s and replace them with new more modern designs. Not that I believe this is where they will go but it could happen.
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Nuclear is simply too expensive to build modern reactors. It costs almost $20 billion to build a modern reactor.
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I would be interested in where you got this number from. I hope you are taking into account we are talking about Europe and not the US. The laws would be different there so the regulations that stifle the building of modern reactors in the US wouldn't be the same.
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My $20 Billion number comes from the recently canceled Georgia reactor, the last still under construction in the US. Similar prices were developed at the other US sites before they were canceled as well, IIRC the TVA reactor canceled when the project price reached $18 billion at 30% complete.
There are only two reactors under construction in what I would consider Europe (there are several more under construction in former soviet states). The one under construction in Finland is a prime example of the problem
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Don't believe me? Look at the prices for the reactors under construction. The real prices, not the fake ones they presented at the beginning.
No, I'm going to take you at your word. I see no reason to fact check you because I know that you are correct. New reactors cost an ass load to build and most of that cost is before the first brick is laid. You have to fight your way through mountains of red tape, and legal challenges by the anti nuke kooks. Then there is the cost of the pepper spray that you will need to clear the hippies off the land.
But my point is the actual cost of the structure and shit probably wouldn't be that much if it wasn
120 pct Renewable Portfolio Standard (Score:2)
Look, it's all well and good to say in 12 years you'll start to have an 80 percent Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), but what the EU needs is a 2020 120 percent Renewable Portfolio Standard.
What is the difference?
Four things:
1. Eliminate all tax deductions, tax exemptions, tax incentives, and tax subsidies for all fossil fuel energy. Period. Including depreciation.
2. Require 120 percent of all net new energy use be renewables. That means for every KWHr you add, you have to remove 20 percent of fossil fu
EU is kidding itself (Score:2)
1) are closing down coal if they have any,
2) have replaced these or added CLEAN energy.
3) the best are those with Hydro, Geo-thermal, and Nuclear. Oddly, Solar and somewhat wind, have not really helped local economies to cut back their emissions. Germany and Portugal have moved to around 40-50% of their electricity from solar and have spent enormous sums of money. problem is, that the more they move towards these, th
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They could probably suffice, if expanded, and accompanied by smart grid, HVDC continental-scale power transmission, and significant amounts of energy storage including things like compressed air, centralized large-scale hydrogen facilities, lithium batteries distributed through the grid and at endpoints, etc.
But may as well add in deep Geothermal, and nuclear fusion when it breaks through.
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Geo-thermal, hydro/hydro storage, and 3.5/4th gen fission nukes, esp SMRs that can burn up the nuke waste, are all possible TODAY. The fission nukes can, and should be replacing coal plants.
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Then for the other 2/3, we need CLEAN base-load power. Nukes, Hydro, and geo-thermal are the ideal sources. And once nuclear power has 4th gen or even fusion, then we should shutdown the older 2nd/3rd gen nuke reactors. Obviously, Hydro is only available in certain loc
So, all Europeans stop exhaling? (Score:2)
Will also mean that they will have to put down all their critters.
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Score: +5, Sarcasm.
See: SUVs, fossil-fuel based power plants such as coal, anti-science President and wasteful American way of life.
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All I have to do is drive around the city where I live and look at the billboards, and the people (especially women) walking down the street, to see how high our standard of living is in comparison to so many other parts of the world, and it's not hard at all to understand why so many other countries hate the U.S. as much as they do. We flaunt our prosperity here
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to see how high our standard of living is
The standard of living in the USA is not appreciably higher than most EU nations, and actually significantly lower than many. Yet you still manage to outdo them in all forms of energy consumption measurements per capita, per household, per km driven, per kWh produced, etc.
No one hates the USA for your standard of living. That's one of the reasons migrants want to go there. You're hated for many other reasons and one of them is a superior attitude that ignores many of the realities of your life, a prime exam
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That's why I mentioned SUVs as an example. That's a wasteful method of transportation for the city yet a lot of people drive those for no reason other than "it's more secure than small cars". By that logic everyone in the USA should be driving armoured fighting vehicles. Another example is living in a McMansion, watching Netflix on a 100" TV using an Xbox One instead of living in a normal-sized home and watching
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Re:U.S. is way ahead of them. (Score:4, Insightful)
Better in what? Education? Quality of life? Access to affordable healthcare? Crime? Environment?
Do tell.
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Hmm, steam power was a British invention. James Watt was a steam power pioneer around 1776 and the SI metric unit of power is named after him eg. the Watt = 1 Joule per second which is a unit of power.
But then Al Gore and some american kid (Score:2)
That's when the interweb REALLY took off.
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Better at saying stuff, sure.
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It's called American Capitalism and what makes us better then anyone else in the world.
When?
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Seems to be working well for you. I tell you what, since you think that it is such a bad thing why do you move someplace like Iran or Venezuela and lets see how you do there?
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Trollololololol
You've been spotted. [4chan.org]
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Rick, I think you have finally lost your mind. Looks like you are coming more unhinged every day. Some of that stuff you wrote in your journal is pretty disturbing. I'm going to wander off now. I would suggest professional help.
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But he is not in any of these countries. He is in the US and complaining about the system he takes advantage of.
But you are correct. I'll amend my OP, and he can move to France, Germany, or any of the countries you mentioned.
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I know AC don't get mod points but those of us with accounts too. I actually get lots of mod points. When I do get them I do read at below +2, like I should. I've had something like 45 mod points in the last few days. I will reset to my normal +2 reading level when I'm sure I will not be getting any more for awhile.
So you shouldn't be to concerned about my credibility, sir sock.
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I just went to the bathroom. Does that count?
Re:U.S. is way ahead of them. (Score:5, Insightful)
The U.S. has already reduced carbon faster than the EU.
Wake me up when the U.S. has reduced carbon enough to get per capita emissions lower than the EU.
The atmosphere doesn't care about per-capita (Score:2)
It cares about emissions, full stop.
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I agree. Easiest/best way to cut emissions is to cut USA emissions.
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Wake me up when the U.S. has reduced carbon enough to get per capita emissions lower than the EU.
Wake me up when the individual gets as much money for the manufacturing/production that creates pollution as the entity that creates the pollution. Until then, take your per-capita measurements and shove them up your ass. Have a nice day. :)
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why would an individual or an entity get money for creating pollution?
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why would an individual or an entity get money for creating pollution?
To be strictly accurate, nobody makes pollution for money.
A more accurate way to read what I said is this:
Entities (companies, governments, anything but individuals) make products such as cars or generate electricity or whatever. These entities then sell these things, but the problem is, that in order to make those things, pollution is created.
Very few (1% I believe is the current accepted number?) people profit from these activities. Since I am not sharing in the profits, why am I being included the calcul
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Very few (1% I believe is the current accepted number?) people profit from these activities. Since I am not sharing in the profits, why am I being included the calculations for pollution?
I stopped reading right there. The answer to your question is obvious. Since you purchase/use the products of these "evil" corporations, maybe even you work for them, you are part of the pollution problem. No corporation pollutes for the sake of it. They pollute to create good/services for the consumers, which in the end are individuals one way or another.
It doesn't matter if you tax the corporation or the individual for the pollution. The result is the same. The polluting economic activity will reduce and
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Yes, I specifically left the consumers out of the equation so we could keep this discussion within a few paragraphs instead of entire novels. But, alas, no. I will still try to make this as short as possible.
It doesn't matter if you tax the corporation or the individual for the pollution. The result is the same.
The ends do not justify the means. I don't care if the result you are looking for is the same. I care about fairness.
The answer to your question is obvious. Since you purchase/use the products of these "evil" corporations, maybe even you work for them, you are part of the pollution problem.
Sure. But one of the parties in this equation is profiting off of the situation whereas I am not. Furthermore, per-capita is per country but products are being shipped all over the world.
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Poor trolling.
I've lived in some of the allegedly no-go areas in the UK, no problem at all. Had most of the phone lines in one street as I ran an early (dial-up) ISP for example...
I've not enjoyed some parts of big US cities nor (say) the look of the shanties in South Africa.
The standard of living here in London is as good as NYC or Tokyo or anywhere else I've spent significant time.
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So, I disagree about dense urban living being bad, though I'm not in the very centre where I am. It is great being able to quickly walk to most places I want to get to (no finding a place to park, and being able to have a drink, for example), including huge well-maintained (royal!) parks, with excellent public transport beyond that.
I also find cars an uncomfortable nuisance. Though I can drive, and have driven quite a lot outside the UK too (including the US), I am very glad that I've never had to buy, in
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Why not come over here and see for yourself? Afraid to discover that you've been parroting complete horseshit?
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I see you also haven't traveled anywhere outside of the US.
I have. Try again with your weak attempt at trolling.
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No matter the excuses, it makes the USA a part of the CO2 problem, not the solution. The USA is not in a position to criticize anybody (except maybe some heavy polluting persian gulf states), but especially not the EU.
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We also have a faster uptake cycle of new technology, and aren't as reliant on diesel as Europe is.
Hmm, that is misleading as diesel has a higher energy density than petrol (gasoline) and diesel generates less CO2 per unit of energy than petrol (gasoline). Unfortunately, diesel generates more air pollution than petrol (gasoline). Therefore, both diesel and petrol (gasoline) are bad for the environment.
My expectation is that electric cars will be dominate before 2030 because people will demand non-polluting vehicles. Already markets are waiting for Tesla cars to become available displacing sales of new fo
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See https://cleantechnica.com/2018... [cleantechnica.com] which shows the Tesla Model 3 is the 5th top car selling car by units sold but is top car by revenue. You are correct that Japanese and Korean manufacturers lead by number of units sold. You need to look at Tesla's 2018 car sold numbers and not 2017 due to the fast ramp up of the Tesla Model 3 this year. It is no joke for GM and Ford.
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Please seek professional help.
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Surely that's paid trolling (or a blind-drunk post, or a prank) since it is difficult to believe anyone that manages to breathe can actually believe that level of stupid.
Rgds
Damon
PS. I guess we should be grateful that /. does not allow penis-pic attachments to posts...
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Even more stupid trolling! All the way down!
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Doesn't matter how many times you try to stir the sh*t, the EU is doing pretty well on carbon emissions by and large, as are many of the individual member states.
Short-term blips and diversions are not at all the same as wilfully ignoring fact and endangering the entire human race for some short term political and monetary gain...
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Poor trolling. Perfect monotonic graphs would be lovely but this is the real world. Take a look at some of the individual member states' progress for example.
A carbon fee and dividend is a smart approach (Score:2)
Those who still call that an additional tax are just gas-guzzler-owning, lying a-holes.