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China, in Pointed Message To US, Tightens Its Climate Targets (nytimes.com) 121

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
President Xi Jinping of China pledged on Tuesday that his country, the world's top producer of greenhouse gases, would adopt much stronger climate targets and achieve what he called "carbon neutrality before 2060." If realized, the pledges would be crucial in the global fight against climate change. From a report: The announcement, made at the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, is significant because China is currently the top producer of greenhouse gas emissions. What the country does to curb its emissions, therefore, is crucial to slowing down global warming on the whole. The timing of the announcement was equally notable, coming so close to United States elections in which climate change has become increasingly important to voters. President Trump has pulled the United States out of an international agreement aimed at slowing down climate change. His challenger, Joseph R. Biden Jr., has pledged to rejoin the accord and promised to spend $2 trillion to slash emissions and address the effects of climate change.
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China, in Pointed Message To US, Tightens Its Climate Targets More

China, in Pointed Message To US, Tightens Its Climate Targets

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  • Great leap forward! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by CajunArson ( 465943 ) on Tuesday September 22, 2020 @04:53PM (#60532980) Journal

    This reminds me of how they "improved" their steel production quotas by having farmers melt down their own tools to make crappy useless steel. Hilarity -- oh wait I mean mass starvation -- ensued!

    Make all the goals you want China, but wake me up when you stop being the source of all that plastic crap floating in the oceans that doesn't come from the US and when you tear down the Three Gorges Dam before it falls apart from incompetent building practices on its own.

    • china is getting religion a bit late. (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      After building all those coal plants and also apparently fudging emissions reports, it's responsible for pollution that reaches detection all the way to the west coast of the US.
      I'm thinking they aren't planning to mothball these. So talk is cheap and 2060 is well past the current leaders bed time.
      Instead china should perhaps propose to pay for carbon credits to offset their existing coal smoke emissions. That would show real committment while not actually reducing the power they need.
      Those credits could

      • I don't mind the US trying to cut down emissions, etc ...BUT, I don't see it being in our best favor to obligate ourselves (especially not by any binding treaty) to other countries to do so.

        We need to do it in a way and time frame that doesn't hurt our already very wounded economy.

        And with China...I'll believe it when I see it.

        • If you had a president that supported action on climate change he'd have negotiated carbon tariffs on Xi as part of the US-Chinese trade war.

          e.g. why do you think tech giants such as Google, Apple and Microsoft are so keen to greenwash their zero emissions targets within their manufacturing chains? Because under such an agreement any phone or laptop made in China would carry a carbon tax for import. But those already green-certified would have that waived while other manufacturers might have, say, $20 for a

      • It's about cars (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        China doesn't have a huge personal auto fleet. And the next generation of cars will be electric. So it's a moment when an new autoiundustry can emerge and china wants to build those cars. In the US there's a huge infrastructure around gasoline auot and it also is a big exprot market for US based countries. If China can get everyone to start thinking gas powered cars are pollution hazards then they will be able to seize those markets for their EV producers.
        It's a swindle. They will be doing what they al

      • The reason China built all those coal plants that is they can't get the high temperature steel formula right, and so they have to replace parts all the time. It's hard to get figures, but their coal plants seem to have something like >50% downtime. (As opposed to say German built coal plants with 1% downtime). It's kind of the laughing stock of the industry. No wonder they want to move to renewable.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Did WindBourne put you up to that?

          Chinese coal plants run at less than 50% simply because they have way too many of them.

          They are also the most efficient ones in the world. [google.com]
          But it's still stupid of them to make so many. And to even more stupidly keep making even more.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          No, the reason they build all those coal plants was a giant governmental fuck-up. The central government decided that in order to meet rapidly changing energy demands they would devolve power to regional governments. The regional governments had no experience but could see demand increasing so built lots of coal plants. But wind was cheaper and more profitable so by the time they were finished most of them ended up mothballed.

          The ones that did start up have extended periods of down-time because it's just no

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      You don't need to go that far. All you need is to simply note that China has a tendency of making promises it has no intention of ever keeping. Then you can note that central government isn't actually responsible for what regions do because their governance system is fairly decentralized and corruption in the region often results in dictat coming from Beijing resulting in diametrically opposite policy on the ground. It's how those massive coal plants that people saw on satellite images about a year ago bein

      • Joseph R. Biden Jr., has pledged to rejoin the accord and promised to spend $2 trillion to slash emissions and address the effects of climate change

        Just think, Biden only wants to spend about $13,000 per working adult in the country on this one initiative. I suppose there's no chance he goes over that budget, since as we all know, that never happens with government projects...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        Prior governments of China versus current Government of China. Of course it could be fair to say all US government has never changed, always persecuting the non-Anglo Saxon, never changed, a pattern for all governments originating out of the UK, built in racism and classism and prejudice, the ruthless and corrupt exploitation of the poorest, where ever they stain touched down and took hold, so that filthy nature propagated, promoted by a corrupted religion, why the poor should work for the rich or be made t

    • China only makes what the world wants. It's lazy to blame them for the plastic when it's people all over the world ordering and irresposibly discarding it. Rich countries took advantage of poverty stricken China by offering them money to make all that crap for them. If you were on the verge of starvation and someone offered you money to make them plastic bags what would you do? Don't lie. If you think you would take the moral high ground you've never been poor. I guarantee you'll find a way to justify it ..

  • Media: Russia hacked the election, Russia hacked the election, Russia hacked the election. Why is Trump letting Russia hack the election? Doesn't he care about foreign interference in elections? Brought to you by our sponsor China.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mark-t ( 151149 )
      He didn't "let" them... he never believed it was happening in the first place.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      China doesn't need to. If China plays this right out could be a huge boon for them.

      4 years of Trump has given them the opportunity to present themselves as a more reliable superpower that offers long term stability, something the democratic US can't. They can take over institutions like the WHO, maybe even the UN if Trump decides to back away from that.

      There is risk, the trade war isn't good for anyone but if Trump only does one term it's not so bad for them. If he does two... Well they might have to get se

      • >"4 years of Trump has given them the opportunity to present themselves as a more reliable superpower that offers long term stability, something the democratic US can't. "

        Or you can flip that around and say:

        4 years of Trump has forced them to capitulate and try and present themselves as a more reasonable superpower that offers long term stability, something the democratic US already has and still has.

        • Trump/Trump Administration: Chaotic Evil with Neutral tendencies
          Chinese government: Lawful Evil with Neutral tendencies
          Not sure I see how one is really better than the other.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Look at how many countries are partnering with China for infrastructure projects and trade links. China presents itself as a high growth and reliable partner, free from regular changes of leadership and direction. It also doesn't have the colonial legacy and history of screwing with other countries that the US does.

          • >"Look at how many countries are partnering with China for infrastructure projects and trade links. China presents itself as a high growth and reliable partner, free from regular changes of leadership and direction."

            Oh, there is certainly truth to that. As long as you don't care about their total disregard for how they treat their citizens, they are very attractive for doing business.

            >"It also doesn't have the colonial legacy and history of screwing with other countries that the US does."

            That is a bi

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              Oh, there is certainly truth to that. As long as you don't care about their total disregard for how they treat their citizens, they are very attractive for doing business.

              Indeed, and a lot of places don't care because they are just as bad or wish they were.

              China does screw with other countries, just in different ways. Manipulating currency, IP theft, hacking, aggressive threats...

              Compared to the US though? The threats from China are nothing compared to what the US actually does. The US hacks entire countries, as Snowden showed us. Hacked Merkel's phone, a supposed ally. And when it comes to currency the US Dollar is the most manipulated in history. The US does everything it can to prevent people selling oil in other currencies, using that power to exert control. It does everything it can to keep it

            • What do these countries have in common? Long term disputes with China. Tibet is overrun, Mongolia is a puppet, Vietnam kicked their asses 3 times, India keeps getting in border spats which didn't happen when the border used to be Tibet and North Korea is another puppet.

              But go ahead and partner with the CCP, they'll buy your rope all day long.

      • They can also, given their iron-grip on their media, internal internet, and what 'information' (/sarcasm) leaves China, portray themselves as more 'moral' and 'ethical' and perhaps so far as 'humanitarian' (as ridiculous as that sounds when applied to the Chinese government) than Trump and the current U.S. Administration/Congress. Again, regardless of how utterly absurd that all seems.
    • Multiple misdirections from Russia. Distract and obfuscate the truth. They're good at that sort of thing, I'll give them that, their intelligence agents have good tradecraft.

  • Way it works (Score:4, Insightful)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Tuesday September 22, 2020 @05:02PM (#60533008)

    Everything is made illegal, then the government selectively enforces whatever it wants depending on expediency or publicity. That's what you get with "strong" communist/socialist government.

    • "government selectively enforces whatever it wants"

      This folks, is what is called "projection" because the rule of law does not apply to them or their allies --- just everyone they don't like. It's not even debatable. Allen Dershowitz's defense of Trump at his impeachment was not to prove he wasn't guilty, but to propose that anything to get re-elected is legal because it allows the people to be rewarded with a great leader -- who knows how to extort and collude. They have someone they like convicted of a cr

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Sounds like the US. Everyone breaks at least a few laws every day without realizing it, cops can kill you if they "feel threatened", even if you are innocent they make you choose between a plea deal or risking decades behind bars.

      Not that the UK is much better, but I'm not the one throwing stones in a glass house.

  • ...and America's soft power continues to erode.

    I tell ya, this administration has been just amazing in terms of our standing in the world https://www.pewresearch.org/gl... [pewresearch.org]

  • US, in flippant message to China, doesn't care (Score:3)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Tuesday September 22, 2020 @05:12PM (#60533042)
    and China ignores the targets anyway. It's a win-win across the board. Except for people who can't afford to live in the country away from all the smog and "cancer villages".

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      They are probably honest on this. Unlike some other countries, China does have a lot of scientists and engineers in government. You know, people that understand what a "fact" is and how Science works. True, they do not care about individuals or freedoms and that makes it a really abysmal place to live for a lot of people. But they do care about their continued existence as a country and as a people and they may just have seen the writing on the wall.

  • ... the herd of /. Sinophobes ______________________ Sent from my Huawei

  • This is the typical Xitler strategy. He can say anything he wants because he controls 100% of the media and data publishing.

  • Who's Joseph R. Biden Jr.? Is he related to Joe Biden?
  • That's about 6 thousand dollars on average that Biden proposes to steal from every United States resident. The alleged purpose is to reduce pollution, the actual purpose is to expand the Democrat power base.

  • Reducing its carbon footprint in the near future should not be a big problem for China as its economy seems to be heading for a major collapse. As its manufacturing businesses close, the country will move toward the Luddite ideal of zero energy consumption. Of course, many people will probably starve as a result, but the change should please the climate alarmists.

  • Yeah. And yet, their CO2 continues to climb, while America's continues to drop, even with an idiot at the helm.

    Anybody that believes this shit is an idiot. Though no doubt we will see numerous Chinese trolls on here posting what a great thing this is. Just like when China promised to stop building new coal plants. Or when they said that they would quit adding new coal mines.
  • This can't be under-stated. We have a chance of surviving our own climate change stupidity now. One benefit of "Their way of doing politics" is that things can just get done. There's no chance of complaints or pushback. This can be really bad if it's stuff like human rights, or it can save the world when it's stuff like climate change.
  • ...when they say they'll do something? For the olypmics, they've had fake wind turbines that, not only doesn't generate power, but needs power to turn to look like they're getting power. They're upholding 1 party 2 system by enforcing their one system in Hong Kong. They're saying they're not hollding xinjiang people in concentration camps by forcefully giving them hysterectomies and abortions.
  • "Look at us, we are going to cut pollution way down by 2060" Let me get this straight, China, you are JUST NOW wanting to get your pollution rates down and it's going to take you 40 years to do so? China is the worst offender on human made climate change and now they are patting themselves on the backs and virtue signalling to the world? This type of posturing doesn't look good for the future. I mean, i'm all for them cutting their pollution down, but this looks bad.

  • By 2060 it'll be way too late.

    Bend over, here it comes

  • To see who the biggest liar is .. Xi or Trump. The Pooh vs the Big Orange Clown. Fight!

  • Good luck surviving in the Chinese desert past 2040.

  • Haha. " If realized". Right. Just like IP reform was realized, and opening markets was realized, and China does no cyberspying. This is a ploy to put pressure on the US to hobble its economy further, especially if Biden wins, by trying to beat China's empty promises by actual very expensive and inefficient action, while China laughs all the way to the bank.

  • It's already known that the PRC measures pollution ...differently.
    Kind of like the way the value on the RMB is set, market? who needs markets, its worth what we say it is.
    So goes the measurement of pollution will be what the CPC says it is.

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