The Dirty Secret Behind China's Rising Emission Levels: Pollution from State-Run Companies (bloomberg.com) 304
"The world's top five polluters were responsible for 60% of global emissions in 2019," reports Bloomberg — but China alone "generated about the same amount of CO2 as the next four countries combined." That's despite having a smaller population than those four countries combined — and even then, China's carbon output "is still rising every year."
But then Bloomberg notes that a big part of that problem may be dozens of state-owned companies. (Just one subsidiary of China's oil company Sinopec contributed more to global warming last year than Canada, while China Baowu, the world's top steelmaker, "put more CO2 into the atmosphere last year than Pakistan," and more than Austria and Belgium combined.)
The article concludes that any attempt to affect climate change will have to include China's state-run companies. There are several factors in China's favor as it works to decarbonize. Solar and wind power are now often cheaper than fossil fuels. Electric vehicle and battery technology has matured, and China is a leader in both. Investment in green technologies such as hydrogen and carbon capture is at an all-time high, increasing the likelihood of deployment on a large scale....
China's biggest task is to green its electricity sector. That means shutting down thousands of coal-fired power plants and dramatically increasing clean energy. The nation already leads the world in renewables and just kicked off a massive 100 gigawatt project in the desert that will be bigger than all the wind and solar installed in India today. Known as the Big Five, China's top utilities — Huaneng Group Co., Huadian Corp., China Energy Investment Corp., State Power Investment Corp, and Datang Co. — are some of the world's largest polluters... In 2020, emissions from those operations alone added up to 960 million tons of COâ, more than double that of Russia's entire coal fleet.
The Big Five have pledged to reach peak emissions by 2025, but power demand is still increasing and coal has been promoted by government officials as a way to maintain energy security — especially as the world grapples with a shortage heading into winter. In the first half of this year, state-owned firms proposed 43 new coal-fired generators and construction began on 15GW of new coal-power capacity...
More than half of China's oil is used for transportation. So far the government has focused on shrinking those emissions by boosting a nationwide electric vehicle fleet that's already by far the biggest in the world. Planners want one in every five new cars sold to be a new EV by 2025, up from 5% now. Combined with ever-greener power generation, that's the best bet to reduce carbon while still moving people and goods around.
But then Bloomberg notes that a big part of that problem may be dozens of state-owned companies. (Just one subsidiary of China's oil company Sinopec contributed more to global warming last year than Canada, while China Baowu, the world's top steelmaker, "put more CO2 into the atmosphere last year than Pakistan," and more than Austria and Belgium combined.)
The article concludes that any attempt to affect climate change will have to include China's state-run companies. There are several factors in China's favor as it works to decarbonize. Solar and wind power are now often cheaper than fossil fuels. Electric vehicle and battery technology has matured, and China is a leader in both. Investment in green technologies such as hydrogen and carbon capture is at an all-time high, increasing the likelihood of deployment on a large scale....
China's biggest task is to green its electricity sector. That means shutting down thousands of coal-fired power plants and dramatically increasing clean energy. The nation already leads the world in renewables and just kicked off a massive 100 gigawatt project in the desert that will be bigger than all the wind and solar installed in India today. Known as the Big Five, China's top utilities — Huaneng Group Co., Huadian Corp., China Energy Investment Corp., State Power Investment Corp, and Datang Co. — are some of the world's largest polluters... In 2020, emissions from those operations alone added up to 960 million tons of COâ, more than double that of Russia's entire coal fleet.
The Big Five have pledged to reach peak emissions by 2025, but power demand is still increasing and coal has been promoted by government officials as a way to maintain energy security — especially as the world grapples with a shortage heading into winter. In the first half of this year, state-owned firms proposed 43 new coal-fired generators and construction began on 15GW of new coal-power capacity...
More than half of China's oil is used for transportation. So far the government has focused on shrinking those emissions by boosting a nationwide electric vehicle fleet that's already by far the biggest in the world. Planners want one in every five new cars sold to be a new EV by 2025, up from 5% now. Combined with ever-greener power generation, that's the best bet to reduce carbon while still moving people and goods around.
Pakistan doesn't really impress me (Score:2)
But more than Austria and Belgium combined, both of which are pretty much playing in the top league of industrialized nations, is kinda scary.
Re:Pakistan doesn't really impress me (Score:4, Insightful)
They are in the top league of deindustrialized nations. You can bet most of their steel is made in China now. If you move all manufacturing to China it is a good guess they will become the world top CO2 emittor.
Why the lies in the submission? (Score:2, Insightful)
"The world's top five polluters were responsible for 60% of global emissions in 2019," reports Bloomberg — but China alone "generated about the same amount of CO2 as the next four countries combined." That's despite having a smaller population than those four countries combined — and even then, China's carbon output "is still rising every year."
This is a complete lie. It's not even mentioned in the article. Where did this lie come from then?
The top 5 are China, USA, India, Russia and Japan.
What kind of complete moron thinks China has a bigger population than those other 4 added together?
Re:Why the lies in the submission? (Score:5, Informative)
China: 1.412 billion
US: 330 million
India: 1.38 billion
Russia: 144 million
Japan: 125 million
They didn't say China has a BIGGER population than the next 4 combined.
They said that China has a SMALLER population than the next 4 combined.
Methinks you misread that.
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Methinks you misread that.
Yes. Oops, Totally misread.
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S'okay. It happens.
At least you have the testicular fortitude to admit it.
It means you're still THINKING.
As opposed to merely REACTING.
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The said:
China has more pollution than the next 4 combined: which is simply wrong.
I think you misread that.
POLLUTION not the same as POPULATION
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No, the claim is that China "generated about the same amount of CO2 as the next four countries combined", not more than them. It's in the first sentence of TFS, with a link to the source.
China has a lower population than those four countries combined, meaning they have higher CO2 emissions per capita.
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Except that it's not wrong.
China tops the list for overall CO2 output.
It puts out more than the next four "top five" nations combined.
Yet those "next four" represent a population of nearly 2 billion to China's 1.412 billion.
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the next four countries combined
This phrase is poorly defined.
The article is obviously using statistical language to make China look bad. It's not really worth trying to figure out the exact meaning the author had in mind to get those statistics, because they are using statistics as a drunk man uses a lamp post, for support rather than illumination.
There is no illumination to be had from this article.
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No, the plain meaning of the quote we are discussing is that China has worse per-capita emissions than the next four largest emitters combined.
Besides, the famous joke about a drunk man and a light post is that the drunk looks for his keys under the light post, even though he knows he left them somewhere in the park, because the light is under the lamp post....
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No, the plain meaning of the quote we are discussing is that China has worse per-capita emissions than the next four largest emitters combined.
Which is obviously wrong. So what is your point?
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No, it's absolutely and indisputably true -- India is one of those four, so it brings the average CO2/person down a whole lot.
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The whole article is anti-environmentalist propaganda. Sure, we need to keep pressure up on China to set aggressive climate goals, but the purpose of articles like these is to make people think that the situation is hopeless and so they might as well carry on burning fossil fuels and emitting huge quantities of CO2.
It's the old "until China does arbitrary thing X, we might as well not bother disrupting these highly profitable carbon based business models" argument.
China is on the up side of the curve, we ar
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The point is - why should I do something that inconveniences me and maybe hurts me financially is somebody else is allowed to continue doing whatever is most profitable? Either we are all in this together and all suffer the same loss or inconvenience OR we all continue doing what's profitable.
If we are serious about environment protection, then there should be tariffs on products made in countries with less restrictive environment laws - the tariffs should offset the cost difference and make it not profitab
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Yes, that's what they want you to think.
But in fact China is doing a lot, and will peak a lot lower than the level of emissions you enjoy today. China has had repeated crack downs on pollution too, so clearly people there are not allowed to do whatever is most profitable.
Tariffs are not a bad idea. The EU does use them in that way. The problem is you need to be able to trust that your government will use them for genuine environmental reasons, not as a thinly veiled trade war.
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Tariffs are not a bad idea. The EU does use them in that way. The problem is you need to be able to trust that your government will use them for genuine environmental reasons, not as a thinly veiled trade war.
Yeah, but without them, I can see how "doing the right thing" cane make you go out of business.
Imagine two companies, both making similar items (and people do not really have loyalty to the brand for these items). Some new environmental law is passed and, to comply, the factory needs to spend money to buy different equipment (or additional equipment that captures the pollution etc). One company does just that, but they now need to increase the prices a bit to compensate for the additional expenses in comply
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There is some evidence that consumers will pay a bit more for "green" products. Companies will too. I used to work in the water industry and green credentials were a requirement of every tender.
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Companies may need to do it because of some laws, but I know people who just buy based on price. Even if the item breaks easily and the person spends more money buying new ones instead of buying a higher quality item and using it for a longer time ("but this is so expensive, I can buy two of the cheaper ones" - yeah and the more expensive one will last you three times as long as the two cheap ones).
How "green" something is usually is not even shown. Even if I wanted to buy, say, a screwdriver that was produ
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I'm sure there are "some".
But I doubt that they are a statistical blip at this point.
Most everyone buys purely based on price.
I know I've never considered how "green" something was with regard to any purchase I have ever made in my life, and can't imagine it would be a concern to me in the future.
I suppose I do
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My analogy assumes that both factories make similar products, just that one is in a country with strict environment laws and the other is in a country with less strict laws.
The products could be, say, TVs (made in China vs made in Japan or the EU), other electronics, tools like screwdrivers etc.
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Paris Agreement delegates both responsibility for measuring emissions and specific emissions targets to each signatory nation. You don't need to see what will happen latter. We already know.
But that doesn't help the far left in the West in overthrowing their horribly oppressive far right regimes. The Greater Good demands ignoring reality in this instance. We can fix the climate later. First we must win the war on capitalism, and we don't do that by sanctioning communist nations competing with capitalist one
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Maybe instead of looking at them as an excuse to do nothing you should look at it as an excuse to put pollution tariffs on shit from China.
Yes, people should put pollution tariffs on shit from the USA for the same reason
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People who have more money also pollute more, that's not news. Having more money means that the person can afford the fuel or electricity (or to buy something). Make everyone poor (like most of the Chinese are) and per capita pollution will drop.
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1. There are a lot of people who would argue there's not much current pressure on China to "keep up"
2. China is further back on the development curve, but they're adding capacity, also known as growing their carbon output. Speaking specifically of electricity for residential, commercial, and transportation uses (and not carbon output from chemical processes, all they have to do is add that capacity using low- or no-carbon generation. Like nuclear for example. China knows how to make good nuclear power plant
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China is building some nuclear, but the problem is by the time its ready wind has already come in to meet demand and force the price down to a level where nuclear can't make any money. They had the same problem with coal, built a load of new plants and then mothballed most of them because they just weren't needed.
The best way to apply pressure with China would be to compete on low carbon. We should be installing as much new low carbon power as China is, ideally more, and then exporting that technology and e
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But then Bloomberg notes that a big part of that problem may be dozens of state-owned companies. (Just one subsidiary of China's oil company Sinopec contributed more to global warming last year than Canada, while China Baowu, the world's top steelmaker, "put more CO2 into the atmosphere last year than Pakistan," and more than Austria and Belgium combined.)
So if Sinopec was split into smaller companies they wouldn't pollute just as much in total?
China wouldn't use the same amount of oil?
5 steelmakers making the steel or 10 or 1, would it change the total amount of steel being used?
For all we know 1 company producing all the steel or oil could be more efficient than many smaller companies making the same amount of oil or steel.
There's no analysis being done, just
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For all we know 1 company producing all the steel or oil could be more efficient than many smaller companies making the same amount of oil or steel.
Then you do not know much.
Steel is made in a steel plant. Has nothing to do with the company owning it. I assume with "efficient" you meant the CO2 produced.
Bottom line that is a technology problem because steal is made from iron-oxide! Note the nasty "oxide" - that is oxygen. You have to get that out of the iron ore. For that you "normally" use coal (more preci
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Steel is made in a steel plant.
So far so good...
Has nothing to do with the company owning it.
That's what I said...
I assume with "efficient" you meant the CO2 produced.
Well yes that was the entire point of the topic...
Bottom line that is a technology problem because steal is made from iron-oxide! Note the nasty "oxide" - that is oxygen. You have to get that out of the iron ore. For that you "normally" use coal (more precisely a coal based special coal which english name escapes me). So: unless the process switches to hydrogen, as some companies in Norway are trying right now: producing CO2 while producing steel, is inevitable.
And again: has nothing to do with efficiency, it is simply the amount of oxygen you need to "extract" from the ore to get the pure iron or steel.
All completely irrelevant to the point.
If a company makes X tons of steel.
Then get's split into Y companies doing the same thing as before making X/Y tons of steel each.
The same amount of steel is being made, same pollution. But the "OMG 1 company is making all the steel and CO2 !!!" clickbait headline is now gone...
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No, that is environmentalist anti-communist propaganda. Which a far left nutjob such as yourself views as anti-environmentalist because as a far leftist, only pollution coming out of the West is bad, because that maintains the horribly oppressive Western regimes. Pollution coming out of far left nations like PRC is good, because it's uplifting people out of poverty and maintains the wonderful far left regimes there.
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When the Paris Accords were being discussed, one of the big concerns was that it exercised less control on China and India than it did the United States.
One sentence in and you've already reached the bullshit quota.
1. Countries set their own targets.
2. There are no penalties for not reaching those targets.
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"The world's top five polluters were responsible for 60% of global emissions in 2019," reports Bloomberg — but China alone "generated about the same amount of CO2 as the next four countries combined." That's despite having a smaller population than those four countries combined — and even then, China's carbon output "is still rising every year."
This is a complete lie. It's not even mentioned in the article. Where did this lie come from then?
The top 5 are China, USA, India, Russia and Japan. What kind of complete moron thinks China has a bigger population than those other 4 added together?
"That's despite having a smaller population than those four countries combined"
What kind of complete moron you ask? Apparently the kind that can't read, and somehow still got upvoted for that skill. No one said China has a larger population. It was merely stated like this to highlight the fact that they create even more pollution than even their incredibly large numbers justify.
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Yes misread, the moron was me.
It was merely stated like this to highlight the fact that they create even more pollution than even their incredibly large numbers justify.
But you'd also have to be a little bit stupid to not realize it's just India's numbers bringing the average of the others down to make China look worse.
US, Russia and Japan are all worse per person than China [ourworldindata.org] And only by adding in the very low CO2 and high population India makes it close.
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Yes misread, the moron was me.
It was merely stated like this to highlight the fact that they create even more pollution than even their incredibly large numbers justify.
But you'd also have to be a little bit stupid to not realize it's just India's numbers bringing the average of the others down to make China look worse.
US, Russia and Japan are all worse per person than China [ourworldindata.org] And only by adding in the very low CO2 and high population India makes it close.
If India and all of its "low" pollution levels still manages to rise to the statistical ranks of Top Five Polluters, then there is not really bias being injected here, as it's rather impossible to count them out. India holding almost 18% of the human population has many other issues to contend with, to include CO2. Attempting to dismiss any of the top five with "per capita" hair splitting is rather pointless, and China isn't exactly on the right track. [ourworldindata.org] Their population numbers will do nothing but amplify
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No, I guess I'm more doubling down on the fact that trends matter. [ourworldindata.org]
Regardless, last I checked, it's one planet we humans are dependent on. With one atmosphere. Per capita is political hair splitting on this issue, which will be vilified 20 years from now when pollution levels confirm how fucking pointless that finger wagging activity really was in the big picture.
"Aren't all worse than China.."...meanwhile the rest of the planet is glaring at the Top Five...
The next 4 countries combined (Score:2)
China manufactured most of what what 2 of those countries used, and in 2019 even proceeded to urn their waste for them. But yeah China evil. And as for the "population" side of things, I present to you country 3: India, a country where a not insignificant number of people don't even have access to electricity let alone an industrial driven economy.
In other news I am evil because despite having a well insulated house, using only minimal electricity, and saving energy every chance I get I'm still worse than t
Why aren't you angry, yet? (Score:2, Insightful)
You should be outraged at China! Nevermind that the world's most advanced nations are continuing to outsource production to China that produces cheap crap for Americans and Europeans to buy and throw away shortly afterwards, environment and climate be damned. Where do you think all the resources and energy came from for making all your stuff, Santa Claus? Noooo, Santa Claus just brings presents and toys! Pulled out of an elve's ass, I suppose.
But sure, keep buying shit that breaks if frowned upon, or is pla
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It's not at all whataboutism. The pollution we're talking about is overwhelmingly produced on behalf of other nations. Most energy use in countries that do a lot of manufacturing is performed by corporations, not individuals. You can't blame the individual Chinese for the pollution, which is less per capita than the USA anyway. The blame is shared between those directly producing it, and those paying them to do so.
*sigh* (Score:2)
CO2 not China's biggest problem (Score:2)
CO2 emissions are not chief among the problematic things done by China.
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CO2 emissions are not chief among the problematic things done by China.
Not to people inside, sure. But to people outside, yes they are. How people are treated inside China will be irrelevant when people can't live on this planet any more.
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If you think the greatest threat China poses to the world is emission of CO2, you are beyond help.
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If you think the greatest threat China poses to the world is emission of CO2, you are beyond help.
If you think mankind faces an existential threat more serious than AGW, you are part of the problem
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Threats, yes, but not any real action. The only country China has invaded since the communists came to power was... Vietnam. It happened in 1979 and lasted 3 weeks before they retreated.
Meanwhile the US managed to invade 2 countries in just the past 20 years and overthrew both governments.
Note what they're using more of and using less of. (Score:2)
In a communist state, everything is state run (Score:2)
Devils advocate here (Score:2)
The one-child policy (Score:2)
This whole argument is stupid (Score:3)
We know what to do and we know how to do it and why we have to do it. The time has come for the common man to demand that everyone on the planet pay the price to clean up our act. Will it cost money? Of course but its worth it.
Re:Why China? (Score:4, Interesting)
While per-capita is an important yardstick, it's rather moot when China's per-capita emissions are half that of the US with 4x the population.
The US could drop to zero emissions RIGHT NOW and within 2 years' time, China and India will have taken up all the slack AND grown beyond today's levels.
And pretty much everyone is aware that once we hit the Paris Accord dates, China will simply become more and more egregious about lying about their output.
It is just their MO.
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What do you think the result of the US slashing its emissions would be? China would just carry on as it is?
Seems unlikely, the US would have a big competitive advantage that would presumably be backed up by legislation, e.g. tariffs on goods produced in high emission countries or using materials linked to emissions and pollution. So China would be forced to do the same, as would the EU.
Of course the US won't do that. Even the EU won't do that, and the EU tends to be at the forefront of these kinds of things
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No, in that scenario, China would rapidly ramp up to take up the slack. Total collapse of US would mean China actually becoming a world class imperial power, which needs a whole lot more power to power its geopolitical needs, ranging from massive ramp up of the long range expeditionary military, foreign base building, rapid ramping up of the already massive exports of cheapest form of power abroad to power its imperialism.
All while needing to keep uplifting the people out of poverty. Because the reason that
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Presumably the US wouldn't only impose net zero on itself though, those requirements would apply to imports as well.
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The US can only "impose" via treaties and the like.
We've already seen that an obstinate China simply doesn't give a damn about contractual obligation if they can get away with ignoring them.
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The US can only "impose" via treaties and the like.
The US can not levy tariffs on stuff that comes from a specific nation, but can place tariffs on imported goods based on CO2 emissions.
Re:Why China? (Score:4, Insightful)
The US can put tariffs on items that can't be proven to be low/zero emission. Countries that are trusted could self certify, others would need to have supply chain inspections by trusted third parties. On arrival in the US parts could be tested to detect banned substances or signs of banned manufacturing processes.
The EU already did this kind of thing with RoHS.
Re:Why China? (Score:4, Insightful)
The US can put tariffs on items that can't be proven to be low/zero emission.
Oh, like solar panels [solarpower...online.com]. No, wait, that just makes the most effective way of lowering CO2 50% more expensive than any other country... To fix the problem of solar panels still being affordable and cutting into fossil fuel profits we’re making the tariffs far larger [reuters.com]. After all, solar is so unviable we need massive taxes to stop it while fossil fuels are so cheap they need massive subsidies, it’s basic American economic principles. Can you imagine the damage done if we abolished all tariffs of them and gave rebates for American solar panel purchases instead and let the price drop through the floor? My god, there wouldn’t be a straight frog left.
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CO2 reduction is only "competitive" if both sides give a shit about CO2 reduction.
If one side just doesn't? Not a competition. And the competitive advantage is seen elsewhere in the economic sector.
Like China's stance on rare earth mining.
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China will simply become more and more egregious about lying about their output.
China has the same problems everyone else has with climate change.
And you can not really lie about your CO2 output anyway. It is clearly visible from space.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Re: Why China? (Score:2)
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They AREN'T much cleaner. They're putting out more, OVERALL.
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They are much cleaner in the sense cave men are far cleaner still -- they have a ways to go for living standards.
Anyone who suggests this is a preferred state of existence for humans is mass murderous, both for current tech levels, and for the economic dynamism required to produce new wonders, which is the lion's share of quality of life improvements over the long run (and not just handing out that-which-exists-already.)
Re:Why China? (Score:5, Insightful)
You evidently can't read a graph and know nothing beyond your misinterpretation.
China has a lower per-capita output than the US. Yep.
It's roughly half what the US is outputting.
However, China has 4x the US population.
1 x 100 = 100
4 x 50 = 200
And we know, FOR A FACT, that China's CO2 output is increasing on a yearly basis.
The same thing is happening in India.
If we know that CO2 is potentially killing the planet. Do we simply give China and India a "pass" on CO2 production simply because they're still, technically, a "developing" nation?
If so, we're fucked.
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Do we simply give China and India a "pass" on CO2 production simply because they're still, technically, a "developing" nation?
What is the alternative?
Clearly China and India are not going to accept "sorry you can't industrialize and bring your standard of living up to Western levels, we already did that and fucked up the climate so there's nothing left for you!"
If we tell them that then they will quite rightly demand that we go carbon negative and clean up some of the historic emissions we made, down to their level. We will reject that and there will be no agreement at all, and +5C here we come.
What would you personally be willing
Re: Why China? (Score:5, Interesting)
We donâ(TM)t have the resources on the planet for China and India to exist at western levels. Letâ(TM)s say we remove all emissions from western nations today, and let China and India continue to emit for the next 200 years in the name of equity. Now their collective 3.5 plus billion people are emitting at a rate comparable to western nations today. What did we fix? Nothing! We made it worse in the name of some perverse equity concept
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When the ultimate, stated goal is OVERALL reduction/elimination of CO2 production.
No. Sorry.
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Because there's so many more of them.
And if they get there the cheap and dirty way, NOTHING we do will help at all.
I'm not saying the US shouldn't reduce.
They SHOULD.
I'm saying just turning a blind eye in certain regions will accomplish NOTHING.
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I think we have already established that CO2 production is NOT intrinsically tied to their society's wellbeing.
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All these climate change zealots including greta, won't even call china out for this fact.
Well, they're a little busy trying to add up ALL of the carbon emissions since 1750...you know, back when America invented pollution.
Gotta always find someone to blame who will actually feel guilty about it./p.
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Well, they're a little busy trying to add up ALL of the carbon emissions since 1750...you know, back when America invented pollution.
I thought the UK "invented pollution".
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I thought the UK "invented pollution".
Yeah, that. The UK also invented the USA, accidentally. If you go by who created what, the UK is responsible for frankly most of the world's ills :D
Re:but you will never see (Score:5, Funny)
If you go by who created what, the UK is responsible for frankly most of the world's ills :D
All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?
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Slavery, military conquest and totalitarian control predate the roman empire. Gonna need a source for the species extinction part though.
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But the USA invented large-scale tea and tea parties.
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The entire idea of "inventing pollution" is ridiculous. Even a basic camp fire will create pollution, and homoiids have been using fire for over a million years.
Re:but you will never see (Score:4, Insightful)
You are firing grievously incomplete [ourworldindata.org] data. You can't look only at CO2 per capita; you must also consider how much value is being produced, and on that front, China is doing terribly. It's been that way [indexmundi.com] for a very long time.
Re:but you will never see (Score:5, Insightful)
consider how much value is being produced, and on that front, China is doing terribly.
How much value do countries offshoring and outsourcing to China produce from that?
Re:but you will never see (Score:5, Insightful)
Your reasoning is pitiful.
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No wonder you're posting aonymously. As worthless as the per capita stats are, you've linked stats that show the US is actively reducing emissions whereas China and India's are rising.
Maybe so but the USA is by far the biggest producer per capita so they've got a lot more low-hanging fruit to aim for.
ie. Big reductions should come easy in the USA.
TLDR: The USA should be leading by example, not throwing stones.
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TLDR: The USA should be leading by example, not throwing stones.
Maybe you should look at who's reducing emissions and who's increasing them and then tell us about examples.
https://ourworldindata.org/co2... [ourworldindata.org]
https://ourworldindata.org/co2... [ourworldindata.org]
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Oh for a mod point, that's the best analogy yet.
Re:but you will never see (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not sure I agree honestly. I'm not discounting per-capita as one metric, but using it exclusively to judge by seems extremely shortsighted and politically motivated. Think about it, what exactly makes per-capita emissions special as a metric? Why not emissions by land area? Heck why not emissions normalized by heating/cooling degree days (after all, a large chunk of the difference between Europe and the US in energy use is its more temperate climate). Do you prorate emissions based on export/import balance to account for offshored emissions in nations with lighter industrial bases? Should absolute emissions really be the focus, or should rate of change in emissions take precedence? Heck, is it fair to treat countries as one bloc for emissions purposes, or should the middle class citizens of China/India be considered distinctly from the rural agrarian populations that are currently diluting their averages?
And that's entirely discounting the other arguments based around things like what date to start counting and what activity to account for. Most developing countries try to highlight change back to pre-industrial revolution times, as it makes a stronger case for them from the perspective of "well you got successful emitting CO2, you should pay us more money to avoid doing the same." I think there's also a strong rational argument for pegging emissions back to around the time a consensus was formed that CO2 was an issue, which is probably in the 80's somewhere depending on who you ask. There might also be arguments for indexing to dates where we had better accounting/data for CO2 emissions. But it really gets tricky, and depending on what and when you pick for criteria you can make wildly different cases. And a lot that rationale is going to boil down to "am I trying to assign blame" versus "am I trying to accurately account for mitigation efforts?"
The reality is that overall emissions matter. Rate of change matters. Per capita emissions matter. Frankly even emissions by area/temperature matter. They all tell you things about what sectors are important to decarbonize, and who is actually making progress. A huge chunk of US emissions are transport related, and that trickles into other sectors like agriculture (a lot of agricultural emissions are also related to fuel used). If BEV's and industrial machinery are on the cusp of rapid electrification the US could have CO2 emissions drop like a stone with frankly not too much extra effort given those technologies are approaching the point that they make sense at face value. Conversely the EU might have a much harder time decarbonizing over the next couple decades if extreme heat waves encourage their populations to embrace air conditioning. And never forget, the planet doesn't care about per capita emissions, that's a human accounting metric. Overall emissions is the only thing that matters ultimately. So outsourcing, greenwashing, and giving apologist arguments for CO2 emissions fundamentally isn't accomplishing anything.
Re:but you will never see (Score:4, Insightful)
Stop trying to make an extremely complex issue seem so complex. What we need here is blame! We need to figure out which metric to use in order to lay the entire problem on someone we don't like very much so that we can feel morally superior.
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If you're going to lie, try some lies that can't be fact checked that easily.
Re:but you will never see (Score:5, Informative)
All these climate change zealots including greta, won't even call china out for this fact.
Liar.
I'll likely get modded down because it sounds truthy even though a 10 second google search shows just how wrong the parent is.
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Ummm. They do... The fact that this is a Slashdot Article kinda shows that China is under pressure for their environmental treatment.
China has been known for a population to wear masks before it became cool in 2020, because the air quality was so bad.
The thing is China has been doing a lot of pro-environmental things as well, more than the United States, so most Environmental Groups tend to reward good behavior, with less focus on their bad behavior (for a little while). The United States remains the top
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The top 5 notice anything strange [ourworldindata.org] .
No, not "strange", just the usual deceitful bullshit.
Helps when you check the relevant box to highlight the reality. [ourworldindata.org]
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LOL So since Americans have always been the dirtiest [ourworldindata.org] They are entitled to keep being as dirty?
Nope, never said that. You assumed it. Don't be ignorant. America is "the dirtiest" because of its place in the timeline of developing nations. If America didn't come along, then someone equally as pointless in the big picture would be holding that esteemed title today. Your complaint is as pointless as blaming human behavior 250 years ago. What matters today, is where we are trending since we've actually realized the problem of pollution.
And all the countries starting at zero should stay there [ourworldindata.org] What a fucking idiot you are geekmux.
The idiots are the ones who fail to recognize that trends matte [ourworldindata.org]
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Good thing we have you here to tell us what Americans need and don't need. Feel free to go door-to-door and start forcing compliance.
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Better take up arms and kill all the 'Mericans, then! Comply or die!
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Okay, bomb the United States then. What's holding you back?
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Already got one, thanks. And no.
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The US does a lot to protect the environment, but also does a lot to destroy it. And frankly, it does a lot more of the latter. You know what's better than trying to make up for damage you've done? Not doing it.