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Only One Big Economy Is Aiming for Paris Agreement's 1.5C Goal (financialpost.com) 100

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Seven of the 10 world's largest economies missed a deadline on Monday to submit updated emissions-cutting plans to the United Nations -- and only one, the UK, outlined a strategy for the next decade that keeps pace with expectations staked out under the Paris Agreement. From a report: All countries taking part in the UN process had been due to send their national climate plans for the next decade by Feb. 10, but relatively few got theirs in on time. Dozens more nations will likely come forward with updated plans within the next nine months before the UN's annual climate summit, known as COP30, kicks off in Brazil.

The lack of urgency among the more than 170 countries that failed to file what climate diplomats refer to as "nationally determined contributions" (NDCs) adds to concerns about the world's continuing commitment to keeping warming to well below 2C, and ideally 1.5C, relative to pre-industrial levels. Virtually every country adopted those targets a decade ago in the landmark agreement signed in Paris, but a series of lackluster UN summits last year has added to a sense of backsliding. US President Donald Trump has already started the process of pulling the world's second-largest emitter out of the global agreement once again. Political leaders in Argentina, Russia and New Zealand have indicated they would like to follow suit.

Only One Big Economy Is Aiming for Paris Agreement's 1.5C Goal More | Reply

Only One Big Economy Is Aiming for Paris Agreement's 1.5C Goal

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  • Sounds about right (Score:2, Insightful)

    by DarkOx ( 621550 )

    Nobody takes the commitment seriously. Not even seriously enough to commit a plan to paper on time let alone actually implemented. They just like to talk about game and dump all of the Donald Trump and USA when he/we stop pretending and just acknowledge what the real policy choices are going to be and what they were always going to be no matter who was in office because otherwise as Harris found out - you lose elections.

    • It's worse than that. You can expect a politician to speak out both sides of their mouth. But climate scientists and activists don't take it seriously either. They all still have cars (gas or electric) or ride bus/train rather than ride bicycles or walk. They all have as much house as they can afford. They all set their air conditioning to their comfort level. They all consume up to the level of their salary. I don't see anyone living their lives as if this were an existential crisis. Actions speak louder t

      • Most of them do because they've come to very much appreciate eating. And sleeping indoors in an individually private room with or without a partner of choice. And wearing clothes.

        I mean to say, they are pragmatists in their own lives, doing all that is necessary to thrive. Shutting off fossil fuels and private transportation would cost them their jobs, their choices, their comfort.

        But they feel better railing against the rest of us who freely admit we want it all. It's just not here yet.

      • The global warming problem is not going to be solved by individual actions. Why should a few individuals take all the burden on themselves? The more effort they do, the less the rest of the world will do anyways.
        Global warming can only be solved by having a price on carbon, and then letting people decide whether it's worth it or not to drive that big ICE car. Some will say it's worth it, others won't. But at least the price on carbon will be enough to cover for the consequences of pollution. Those with a hi

        • Global warming can only be solved by having a price on carbon

          If that's a high price due to natural rarity then people will be highly motivated to find alternatives. If the high price is from taxes then expect people to be motivated to find new elected representatives.

          Those with a high emission lifestyle will end up paying the most. And with all that collected money we can reduce other taxes anyways so there is no loss.

          Those with a high emission lifestyle tend to be those that are in blue collar work. The white collar workers are people that can often work from home, can afford a BEV or PHEV, and can afford the upfront cost of a rooftop solar PV system so they can collect on the government tax incentives at the end o

          • Global warming can only be solved by having a price on carbon

            If that's a high price due to natural rarity then people will be highly motivated to find alternatives.

            A high price becfause the people who emit carbon dioxide will be required to pay for the deleterious effects of the carbon dioxide.

            In other words, right now fossil-fuel energy now is cheap because the people who use it get to dump it in the atmosphere for free, and if in the long run that harms others, other people pay, not them. This is known as "externalities" in economics jargon.

            Paying for externalities is, in fact, the free-market solution.

            If the high price is from taxes then expect people to be motivated to find new elected representatives.

            And that's the problem, isn't it? Everybody wants their represen

            • Paying for externalities is, in fact, the free-market solution.

              I'm quite certain that government taxation is the polar opposite of a free market.

              And that's the problem, isn't it? Everybody wants their representatives to give them free stuff. Like, they want to use the atmosphere as a dumping ground for their waste CO2, and not pay anything for it.

              I'm stating a simple political reality, people don't like taxes and they will vote against them. Maybe some taxes are tolerated, like a local sales tax, because people that pay them expect the taxes to go towards their schools, firefighting, roads, and other projects that they can see for themselves. How do you convince people to tolerate carbon taxes? Energy costs are already high and the threat of global warming isn't car

              • Paying for externalities is, in fact, the free-market solution.

                I'm quite certain that government taxation is the polar opposite of a free market.

                You would think that, and you would be wrong.

          • If you look at the total picture I think you will find that the white collar types tend to fly all over, while the blue collar types fly rarely. Flying produces a massive amount of carbon dioxide.

            The blue collar types are heavily into reuse and repair, while the white collar types "recycle"--which except for metals doesn't help the environment and is a big cost.

        • Re:Sounds about right (Score:5, Insightful)

          by bryanandaimee ( 2454338 ) on Tuesday February 11, 2025 @03:23PM (#65159961) Homepage
          You may be right, but that's not the narrative. We must all turn down our air conditioners, eat bugs, wipe with one square of toilet paper, ride public transportation. Meanwhile as soon as you point out that the ones demanding individual actions don't actually walk the walk they will immediately switch to "The global warming problem is not going to be solved by individual actions."
          On the other hand, most greenhouse gas emissions come from transportation and electricity. A good chunk of that is industrial but a lot of it is going to individual households. Individual actions could make a large difference. If you truly believed global warming was an existential threat to humans in the near term (Your lifetime) as many will claim, then you would be taking all of the individual actions you could, while also calling for collective action. If you won't take significant individual action without government coercion, then I'm not sure I believe you when you tell me it's an existential threat.

          • You may be right, but that's not the narrative. We must all turn down our air conditioners, eat bugs, wipe with one square of toilet paper, ride public transportation.

            If you look hard enough you can probably find somebody proposing almost anything, but among the people working at how to solve the problem, NOBODY is seriously proposing those things. These are memes that people put forth to avoid thinking about practical solutions. People actually working on solutions are mostly proposing changing our energy infrastructure to reduce fossil fuel use, and putting incentives in place to encourage people to select options that reduce energy use.

            Meanwhile as soon as you point out that the ones demanding individual actions don't actually walk the walk they will immediately switch to "The global warming problem is not going to be solved by individual actions."

            That is accurate; the global war

            • It's not about logic. It's about human nature. The way a person spends their time, money and effort will tell you what their priorities and beliefs are far better than their words will. The actions of climate crisis believers show me that the crisis is about a level 2 out of 10 threat. Worthy of small inconveniences and slight life adjustments but not worthy of severe economic or personal sacrifice.

              For instance, some personal finance advocates live on less than half of their income and save/invest the r

            • These are memes that people put forth to avoid thinking about practical solutions. People actually working on solutions are mostly proposing changing our energy infrastructure to reduce fossil fuel use, and putting incentives in place to encourage people to select options that reduce energy use.

              I'll believe people are thinking practically about solutions to CO2 emissions when they accept the need for energy from nuclear fission. If they remove nuclear fission from consideration then I'm convinced they are not taking the problem seriously. From about 1980, when Carter toured Three Mile Island, until 2020, when Andrew Yang was saying nice things about nuclear fission, the Democrat party wasn't taking global warming seriously. Yang wasn't the first on this but I saw it as a tipping point on the pu

        • Those with a high emission lifestyle will end up paying the most. And with all that collected money we can reduce other taxes anyways so there is no loss.

          +1 Funny

      • But climate scientists and activists don't take it seriously either. They all still have cars (gas or electric) or ride bus/train rather than ride bicycles or walk.

        Speak for yourself, not for other people. I personally have been trying for years to minimize my climate impact. I work from home and drive as little as I possibly can. When I have to, it's in a plug-in hybrid. I rarely fly and almost never eat red meat. Just to give a few examples.

        I'm not unique in this. I know other people who do the same.

        Just because you choose to live as if there were no crisis, don't pretend everyone does the same.

        • That's generally what I would assume most climate activists do. You have taken some steps to reduce your carbon footprint, and that is laudable. You have made some lifestyle adjustments that rise to the level of inconvenience.

          This is exactly what I would expect of a good person that truly believed they should do their part to help improve environmental conditions in a world where climate change is a small and distant risk to humankind. I think your personal actions are well calibrated to the threat leve

          • Let's just quote your earlier post, with appropriate emphasis added.

            They all still have cars (gas or electric) or ride bus/train rather than ride bicycles or walk. They all have as much house as they can afford. They all set their air conditioning to their comfort level. They all consume up to the level of their salary.

            Notice how many times you said "they all", claiming that all of them do things that in fact many of them don't do? Your claims are clearly, objectively false. Lots of them bicycle, walk, or telecommute. Lots of them have smaller houses than they could afford. Lots of them don't have AC, or set it much higher than the comfort level. Lots of them consume much less than they could afford.

            I don't do any of the things you claimed.

            Why are yo

            • "All" wasn't meant in the absolute sense. It was meant as a generalized statement to describe the average person in the group. Of course there are individuals that truly live a zero carbon footprint life. They are the exception, and nobody really points to them and says "That is the way to live". I don't see climate activists parading their personal sacrifice in the media. I don't see personal carbon footprint even really being talked about other than to advocate "small and simple" changes you can do to hel

      • Regular as clockwork...https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        ProTip: That activists do not virtue signal as hard as you would like them to does in no way make the upcoming existential crisis go away.

    • Nobody takes the commitment seriously.

      Maybe because they are a bit distracted by energy and food shortages in Europe because Putin decided to start a war. Then there's problems getting food and fuel through the Red Sea because some people thought it might be cute to fire missiles at passing ships. Panama canal is having issues getting ships through because of a drought and mismanagement. Perhaps I'm mistaken or it's been resolved but I seem to recall labor union strikes at various seaports in the USA. Then there's ships getting lost at sea

      • Textbook whataboutism. Otherwise known as "Argument by changing the subject."

        Saying "other problems exist" in no way justifies the conclusion "therefore we shouldn't try to solve this one."

        • It's not changing the subject to recognize Maslow's hierarchy of needs. If people are concerned about having heat for the winter then are they going to give up their fossil fuel furnace because that could raise the sea levels sometime in the future? No, that's not how people think, and if they did then they might not survive to see any sea levels rise.

          I expect that in time the search for energy will lead people to reduce CO2 emissions almost by accident. They won't care that nuclear fission, hydro, geoth

    • Nobody? Didn't you read the summary?

      The UK did...

  • I hope there is an award (Score:3, Funny)

    by OrangeTide ( 124937 ) on Tuesday February 11, 2025 @01:42PM (#65159629) Homepage Journal

    They should give the UK some of its empire back for good behavior.

    • I say start with the Palestine Mandate. They can have Gaza.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Pseudonymous Powers ( 4097097 )
      I mean, I suppose you might as well give them back a bunch of islands that are under sea level now.
      • I can't think of any British colonies that subsequently sank. Where do you mean?

        • He got modded insightful because obviously he meant Atlantis.

        • I suppose I was mostly joking, for now. However, Tuvalu, just off the top of my head, has been super stressed about sea level rise for a while now, and apparently they were formerly at least British-adjacent.

          • Of the top of your head about Tuvalu would be wrong.

            From 2000 to 2013 it lost a few hectares of uninhabitable land which fueled the scare tactics but since 2014 it's been growing, 73 hectares of habitable land to be exact. Funny enough the media hasn't reported that.

            • Are you claiming that the sea level is actually falling? Or that the mitigations their government has put in place are actually working? Or...?

              • Are you claiming that the sea level is actually falling? Or that the mitigations their government has put in place are actually working? Or...?

                Accretion.

    • Why is that? Submitting plans that can't or won't be followed through on is useless. No democratic government could hope to implement these plans without being thrown out on their asses by the electorate. Would you want to be ruled by some group of people that will make unreasonable demands on how you live, particularly when they themselves will not be forced to adhere to the same rules?

      Reward those who actually solve problems, not those who merely make an effort to appear to be doing something.

  • It's almost like these accords were never a serious approach to climate change. Maybe Trump is right not to take them seriously.

    • juIt's almost like trying to get multiple nations, none of which can really enforce anything against the others takes more than just strong words but takes an actual commitment from the nations that are looked at and considered the leaders, like say the nation that was considered the global hegemon and thus the trendsetter for the world. If that nation was clearly not serious than what would the motivation be for any others, especially when that richest and most influential nation has signaled its intentio

      • Why does the rest of the world have to follow the US?

        Green energy is good. It costs less and is more reliable and cleaner than non green energy. That's why China, for example, stopped building coal and nucle... oh wait. Nevermind.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Nuclear power is green. Anyone who opposes nuclear is a climate change denier. It's literally our only hope.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by KGIII ( 973947 )

            Even with the accidents, nuclear energy is even safer for us when accounting for the whole process and resultant contaminants.

            Disposal of the waste is even a more-or-less solved problem. Chuck it in a disused mine. When it's full cap it off with concrete. Every 25 years, send someone out there to replace the signs.

            Also, more research on thorium MSRs, please.

          • Nuclear power is green. Anyone who opposes nuclear is a climate change denier. It's literally our only hope.

            BEVs are good, hybrids, H2 and e-fuels are bad. Wind and solar are good, nuclear and hydro are bad. Global warming is bad, but we must only use certain select approved-by-obsessives methods to address it.

            This is why I don't care. Can't be that big a crisis if we can afford to be really picky about our solutions. All hands on deck clearly not needed here. Moving along.

          • The problem is, many conservatives push nuclear because it's both centrally controlled, and takes a long time to build (just leave out the fact it's phenomenally expensive with a long long long tail of waste management), that is therefore a great distraction from smaller distributed and cheaper alternatives like (wind, geo thermal, solar) + storage. In Australia the conservative opposition is pushing for nuclear to be introduced by 2050 if we start now, but even the that won't cover more than 5% of Australi

        • I never said anyone "had" to, that's an assumption and a bad faith one.

          Even you would have to admit when you looking at motivations amongst actors who cannot enforce actions against the other (unless we are talking direct violence) that there is a collective action problem at hand and having the wealthiest, most powerful nation in the world taking action has an effect on the motivations and actions on the rest of the world. Of course the current admin prefers a multipolar world where America cedes that inf

          • Ok ok ok I'll take this seriously. Your reply earned that.

            We're talking about the Tragedy of the Commons. And yes you're right, no one wants to be the one to suffer under a low energy green economy because that directly leads to a lower standard of living which is suicidal in both democratic and dictatorship societies. The first one gets voted out and the second one gets murdered in a bloody revolution if living standards decline too much for too long.

            My other point was to note that despite all the talk

        • Not all coal is the same. Clearly China has been innovative in new coal technologies, and also in how power stations are used. Also, they've closed older ones.
          Obviously they still need them and they are part of a larger plan which will come to fruition. They've certainly not done a Trump on the whole thing, and they don't deserve the usual "China bad" knee-jerk reaction...such is more appropriate for the USA, frankly, who played a huge part in getting us into this mess, and seems determined to continue in t

  • Just another example... (Score:3)

    by Rinnon ( 1474161 ) on Tuesday February 11, 2025 @02:12PM (#65159705)
    of the degradation of the collective world order. There was a time not so long ago that we at least tried to make it seem like we cared about working together for a better world; you know, the idea that we can accomplish more together than we could individually. These days, it sure seems that the social contract has broken down and every nation is going to be looking out for themselves. Can't believe I'm nostalgic for the cold war.
    • It isn't a degradation, it's continuity. Every nation has always been looking out for itself. There was never a social contract between them.

      I don't say this to be rude or demeaning, it was true for me too, but if you thought the situation was otherwise it was probably due to youth or naivete. Maybe you believed the people who said we'd save the world with climate summits. Well, half of them knew it was just for show and wouldn't matter, the other half were just painfully naive.

      • I grew up during the cold war. Believe me when I say it's not the same. Living under the constant fear that at any moment we could be wiped out by a nuclear attack really sucked. But it also really did force nations to work together.

        Back then we really did believe that democracy was the answer, and that it was an inevitable force of history. We boasted there had never been a war between two democracies. The idea that so many democracies would embrace fascism and reject the very principle of internation

        • Why were you fearful? I dont know anyone who was living in fear at the time and I dont know anyone fearing global warming either. All agree it is/was a pot if croc.

          • Everyone lived in fear at the time. We didn't talk about it much, and we tried not to think about it, but it was a universal aspect of life.

            Have you ever seen the movie Testament? If you haven't, watch it. That movie captures better than any other I know what was at the back of everyone's mind. The science fiction apocalypse movies from that time are better remembered today, but it wasn't Mad Max or Blade Runner we were afraid of. Those were obvious fantasies. But ordinary people watching their ordina

          • How old are you? If you grew up in the Cold War then you'd have seen popular media play on those fears.
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

            Things looked better around about 1990 to 1992.

    • Just like the idea of Western civilization is a silly myth cooked up for at best dumb reasons and it worst nefarious ones. Countries have never gotten along and they have always fought and abused each other for their immediate and short-term interests.

      The best description I've ever heard of it is an international poker game where everybody's cheating.

      You would need to start breaking down national borders and effectively increasing the scope and size of what people think of as their tribe in order to

    • We have only worked together when we saw something in it for us, or where the expense of doing so was low. For example banning CFCs, that was simple. Spending trillions to change the fundamental energy economy that underpins our industry, ... no so much.

  • What is UK's plan? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MacMann ( 7518492 ) on Tuesday February 11, 2025 @02:21PM (#65159731)

    I was curious if there was a specific plan laid out by the UK government to cut CO2 emissions. I believe I found it:
    https://www.gov.uk/government/... [www.gov.uk]

    It's a long read so I thought to skim it over to find some kind of summary on their plan, emphasis in the quote is mine:

    In December 2024, the UK government published the Clean Power 2030 Action Plan. The government will work with the private sector to radically increase the deployment of onshore wind, solar and offshore wind so that electricity generated by renewables and nuclear power will be the backbone of a clean electricity system by 2030. In a typical weather year, the 2030 power system will see clean sources produce at least as much power as Great Britain consumes in total over the whole year, and at least 95% of Great Britainâ(TM)s generation; reducing the carbon intensity of our generation from 171gCO2e/kWh in 2023 to well below 50gCO2e/kWh in 2030.

    It appears the UK government is following the studies done by Dr. David JC MacKay. Dr. MacKay was was appointed Chief Scientific Advisor to the Department of Energy and Climate Change due to his work on studying energy and CO2 emissions. He's done a number of talks, interviews, and written articles on the topic, with perhaps his best known work being his book: http://www.withouthotair.com/ [withouthotair.com]

    In Dr. MacKay's last interview he laid out the importance of nuclear power to lowering CO2 emissions, prior to that he would give the numbers and calculations to leave others to consider their implications. Knowing his time was running out he changed his mind on that and decided to make it explicit on the only real options for the future. While the numbers will be different for other nations the end result will almost always be the same, without nuclear power in the mix of energy sources there will be no lowering of CO2 emissions. I'd link to the interview but I'm having trouble finding it again.

    • So a complete and utter fantasy document then. The time for nuclear power was 20 years ago. I guarantee you the plan from December 2024 will result in precisely zero additional nuclear capacity built by 2030 in the UK. Zero.

      If they are going to go with such unachievable crap why not just say the UK will solve all the world's emissions by 2030? I mean if you're going to go all out on an acid trip when writing a plan then do so.

      • So a complete and utter fantasy document then.

        Do I believe the UK government on this? Or some internet rando? I'm thinking that the people that wrote the document know more than you on this matter.

        Another way to look at it is that at least the UK released a plan while so many other nations failed to release anything. If there's a better plan then we could look at other nations for better ideas, if only they produced one.

        Maybe nothing is better than a fantasy. If there's no plan then I guess they expect to fail on reducing CO2 emissions. If the pla

    • In Central and Eastern Europe almost all electricity is produced by nuclear and hydro already. It is not in the news, simply because nobody ever talks about Central and Eastern Europe.
  • Sure, it is not fast enough for some, and too fast for others, but we are moving in that direction at a pace that preserves our standards of living (even considering the climate) as best as possible. Did you really think something else was going to happen?

  • ...via Brexit.

    If you don't have an economy of course you are going to pollute less.

    Not buying food keeps the kitchen cleaner.

  • If you are a left winger in America (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Tuesday February 11, 2025 @03:21PM (#65159951)
    You need to put climate change aside right now and focus on voting rights. We've got pretty good data that clearly indicates 7 million Americans were prevented from voting in 2024. About half of those couldn't vote because of things like Jim Crow style ballot challenges, voter purges and just plain making it difficult bordering on impossible to register to vote. The other half was your classic election day shenanigans like multi-hour wait times, poll watchers and bomb threats.

    If you're on the left wing and you have an issue that keeps you there what you need to be focusing on right now is voting rights. Nothing else matters.

    And no you can't go outside democracy to get what you want. You won't be able to build the kind of parallel power structures without the help of sympathetic government and if you try to resort to violence you'll do the same thing China and Russia did and turn into right-wingers. That's because the right wing is inherently better at violence because they're better at command structures and you need a strong command structure to do effective violence, a command structure you aren't going to get rid of when the shooting stops.

    I honest we don't know if we're going to have elections in 2 years let alone 4. But if we don't do anything about voter suppression then no we aren't going to have elections. Stalin was wrong, it's not about who counts the votes it's who gets to vote in the first place. You would think after Jim Crow we'd have learned that

    • I honest we don't know if we're going to have elections in 2 years let alone 4. But if we don't do anything about voter suppression then no we aren't going to have elections.

      You seem to be conflating three different threats. All are real, I think, but aren't the same thing.

      The first is that we don't have elections at all, because the president cancels them.

      The second is that have rigged counting (Stalin-style election rigging).

      The third is that we have elections, and they're counted more or less fairly, but voter suppression severely skews the outcome, i.e. what you're claiming happened in 2024 (though I don't believe it did; voter turnout in 2024 was 59% which is signif

  • We have already passed 1.5 degrees

  • China and India? Seriously? (Score:3)

    by Tyr07 ( 8900565 ) on Tuesday February 11, 2025 @04:38PM (#65160159)

    You're talking about an open, inclusive and ethical behavior from China and India?
    The only things they want out of the deal is open and inclusive. I.E They're afraid they'll fall behind in AI and stealing it might not be an option

  • Only one is willing to harm its own economy and people for a completely pointless symbolic gesture that will have ZERO positive impact.

    There's not any possibility that anything the UK does, even abandoning ALL energy use, and the population killing all their animals and then committing mass-suicide, to zero-out their carbon emissions, that would not be undone by new coal-fired power plants coming online in China.

    At some point here, the globalist morons will hit peak-stupid and then finally confront the real

  • The most reasonable thing for Gen Alpha to do about climate change when they get into power, is to throw their Gen X grandparents and Millennial parents out into the searing wastes. And the ideally put the Zoomers into labor camps growing algae to feed the remaining population, offering them a few minutes of online time per day as payment.

    • The most reasonable thing for Gen Alpha to do about climate change when they get into power, is to throw their Gen X grandparents and Millennial parents out into the searing wastes. And the ideally put the Zoomers into labor camps growing algae to feed the remaining population, offering them a few minutes of online time per day as payment.

      I've seen this movie before. What was it called? Oh, right....
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      • It's originally from the book "Make Room! Make Room!", a horrible dystopia of an overpopulated world of 7 billion people, with over 300 million living in the United States alone.

  • 1.5C is already in the rearview mirror and not only are emissions not falling, the perpetual growth delusionists still have our foot slammed on the gas.

    I once believed that humans were smarter than a slime mold that will mindlessly consume all resources in its petri dish, massively outstrip its environment's carrying capacity and then suffer a catastrophic die-off.

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