Yes, read a book.So they're just called The Communist Party of China for the lols then?
[...] If we had peaked and begun steadily reducing emissions 20 years ago, the necessary pace of reductions would have been around 3 percent a year, which is ... well, "realistic" is too strong — it still would have required rapid, coordinated action of a kind never seen before in human history — but it was at least possible to envision.
We didn't, though. We knew about climate change, there were scientists yelling themselves blue in the face, but we didn't turn the wheel. Global emissions have only risen since then. Humanity has put more CO2 in the atmosphere since 1988, when climate scientist James Hansen first testified to Congress about the danger of climate change, than it did in all of history prior.
Now, to hit 1.5˚C, emissions would need to fall off a cliff, falling by 15 percent a year every year, starting in 2020, until they hit net zero.
A lot of climate activists are extremely averse to saying so. In fact, many of them will be angry with me for saying so, because they believe that admitting to this looming probability carries with it all sorts of dire consequences and implications. Lots of people in the climate world — not just activists and politicians, but scientists, journalists, and everyday concerned citizens — have talked themselves into a kind of forced public-facing optimism, despite the fears that dog their private thoughts. They believe that without that public optimism, the fragile effort to battle climate change will collapse completely.
I don't think that's true, but I can't claim to know it's not true. Nobody really knows what might work to get the public worked up about climate change the way the problem deserves. Maybe advocates really do need to maintain a happy-warrior spirit; maybe a bunch of dour doomsaying really will turn off the public.
But it is not the job of those of us in the business of observation and analysis to make the public feel or do things. That's what activists do. We owe the public our best judgment of the situation, even if it might make them sad, and from where I'm sitting, it looks like the 1.5˚C goal is utterly forlorn. It looks like we have already locked in levels of climate change that scientists predict will be devastating. I don't like it, I don't "accept" it, but I see it, and I reject the notion that I should be silent about it for PR purposes.
In this post, I'll quickly review how 1.5˚C came to be the new activist target and some reasons to believe it might already be out of reach. Then I'll ponder what it means to admit that, what follows from it, and what it means for the fight ahead.
First, it's not that progress is swinging around too slow, it's that there's very little progress at all. For all the frenzy around renewable energy in recent years, the best we've been able to do is slightly slow the rise in global emissions. We're still traveling headlong in the wrong direction, with centuries of momentum at our backs.
Secondly and consequently, the level of action and coordination necessary to limit global warming to 1.5˚C utterly dwarfs anything that has ever happened on any other large-scale problem that humanity has ever faced. The only analogy that has ever come close to capturing what's necessary is "wartime mobilization," but it requires imagining the kind of mobilization that the US achieved for less than a decade during WWII happening in every large economy at once, and sustaining itself for the remainder of the century.
Emissions have never fallen at 15 percent annually anywhere, much less everywhere. And what earthly reason do we have to believe that emissions will start plunging this year? Look around! The democratic world is in the grips of a populist authoritarian backlash that shows no sign of resolving itself any time soon. Oil and gas infrastructure is being built at a furious pace; hundreds of new coal power plants are in the works. No country has implemented anything close to the policies necessary to establish an emissions trajectory toward 1.5˚C; many, including the US and Brazil, are hurtling in the other direction.
Coping with the tragic story of climate change
What bothers me about the forced optimism that has become de rigueur in climate circles is that it excludes the tragic dimension of climate change and thus robs it of some of the gravity it deserves.
That's the thing: The story of climate change is already a tragedy. It's sad. Really sad. People are suffering, species are dying off, entire ecosystems are being lost, and it's inevitably going to get worse. We are in the midst of making the earth a simpler, cruder, less hospitable place, not only for ourselves but for all the kaleidoscopic varieties of life that evolved here in a relatively stable climate. The most complex and most idiosyncratic forms of life are most at risk; the mosquitoes and jellyfish will prosper.
That is simply the background condition of our existence as a species now, even if we rally to avoid the worst outcomes.
Hope in the face of tragedy
Saying that we are likely to miss the 1.5˚C target is an unpopular move in the climate community. It solicits accusations of "defeatism" and being — a term I have heard too many times to count — "unhelpful."
Such accusations are premised on the notion that a cold assessment of our chances will destroy motivation, that it will leave audiences overwhelmed, hopeless, and disengaged.
But the idea that hope lives or dies on the chances of hitting 1.5˚C is poisonous in the long-term. Framing the choice as "a miracle or extinction" just sets everyone up for massive disappointment, since neither is likely to unfold any time soon.
As climate scientist Kate Marvel put it, "Climate change isn't a cliff we fall off, but a slope we slide down." Every bit makes it worse. No matter how far down the slope we go, there's never reason to give up fighting. We can always hope to arrest our slide.
Exceeding 1.5˚C, which is likely to happen in our lifetimes, doesn't mean anyone should feel apathetic or paralyzed. What sense would that make? There's no magic switch that flips at 1.5˚C, or 1.7, or 2.3, or 2.8, or 3.4. These are all, in the end, arbitrary thresholds. Exceeding one does not in any way reduce the moral and political imperative to stay beneath the next. If anything, the need to mobilize against climate change only becomes greater with every new increment of heat, because the potential stakes grow larger.
Same. No point maybe adopt.I gave up on us actually addressing climate change a long time ago. It's why I'm not gonna have kids.
Yes, because screaming "WERE ALL FUCKED!" ad infinitum is so much better solution./samazon and australia are on fire
we're gonna be fine guys lol chill
We just need a dozen more posters to point out that the planet will be fine but humanity won't be.
Seriously .
Given the amount of DOOOOM! On these threads I half expect someone to suggest i should strangle my neighbours newborn son because apparently it is more mercifull then any potential future he may have.
It'll be a thousands-year journey. It'll get worse before it gets better, but humanity will survive, technology will still progress, and the carbon levels will eventually go down as we switch to clean energy and natural processes or human intervention will lower the carbon in the atmosphere. Biodiversity will take a massive hit by the end of it.
But it won't be fine since the sun will eventually destroy it though!We just need a dozen more posters to point out that the planet will be fine but humanity won't be.
This. It's so damn heartbreaking cause it's simple but we'll never do it. If we can't solve climate change how can we ever expect to solve income inequality or fighting back against racism. I know we never will.Lol no.
The planet is fucked. Humanity is greedy and self serving and will not sacrifice things for the good of future generations.
Also, the average American pollutes 4 times more than the average Chinese,
So, Americans and Europeans should stop blaming China and take responsibility of their unsustainable lifestyle.
Cool point, don't see how that's relevant.
I'm not sure I understand what your point is. You can hold accountable a country that pollutes more than a country and a collective of countries do while also holding accountable that country and that collective of countries accountable as well.
Are they wrong though? Reframing the discussion less around the disconnected and abstract notion of "saving the planet" that most human beings clearly don't give enough of a shit about to a discussion about not bringing about humankind's own destruction seems like a small change in the dialogue, but it is an important one.We just need a dozen more posters to point out that the planet will be fine but humanity won't be.
Yup.They also produce most of goods consumed in US and EU.
Also, the average American pollutes 4 times more than the average Chinese, and that's not even counting the carbon footprint of all the goods they import. So, Americans and Europeans should stop blaming China and take responsibility of their unsustainable lifestyle.
So we would downgrade things to humanity becoming an endangered species. So much better.Yeah, this.
Wealthy people will survive, everyone else is fucked.
Once we start seeing widespread drought and famine, is when things will change. A lot of the damage will be done but it's not an extinction level event... As much as some here make it out to be.
The point is that a massive part of China's contribution to climate change is fueled by global consumption and bringing them up is used as a way for shitty people to unburden their own responsibility for China's outsized carbon footprint and lay it on the country itself, rather than American and European industry pinching pennies by fleeing restrictive environmental protections.Cool point, don't see how that's relevant.
I'm not sure I understand what your point is. You can hold accountable a country that pollutes more than a country and a collective of countries do while also holding accountable that country and that collective of countries accountable as well.
The point is that a massive part of China's contribution to climate change is fueled by global consumption and bringing them up is used as a way for shitty people to unburden their own responsibility for China's outsized carbon footprint and lay it on the country itself, rather than American and European industry pinching pennies by fleeing restrictive environmental protections.
While one can certainly say that the lax standards carry part of the problem, laying the blame at production export countries to absolve oneself of responsibility is a farce that deserves to be called out at every opportunity.
The population of the world is 7+ billion and getting larger by the day, The world can't sustain such a large population (without major significant lifestyle changes). As already pointed out, mankind is too greedy and too needy to do anything until it's beyond saving.
It makes me sad to feel my daughter is growing up in a world that is dying..
The point is that a massive part of China's contribution to climate change is fueled by global consumption and bringing them up is used as a way for shitty people to unburden their own responsibility for China's outsized carbon footprint and lay it on the country itself, rather than American and European industry pinching pennies by fleeing restrictive environmental protections.
While one can certainly say that the lax standards carry part of the problem, laying the blame at production export countries to absolve oneself of responsibility is a farce that deserves to be called out at every opportunity.
So when the west looks at their reducing emissions and says 'we're doing our bit' it's bollocks because global emissions haven't reduced, they've just moved.
While one can certainly say that the lax standards carry part of the problem, laying the blame at production export countries to absolve oneself of responsibility is a farce that deserves to be called out at every opportunity.
Are they wrong though? Reframing the discussion less around the disconnected and abstract notion of "saving the planet" that most human beings clearly don't give enough of a shit about to a discussion about not bringing about humankind's own destruction seems like a small change in the dialogue, but it is an important one.
Yup.
So we would downgrade things to humanity becoming an endangered species. So much better.
The point is that a massive part of China's contribution to climate change is fueled by global consumption and bringing them up is used as a way for shitty people to unburden their own responsibility for China's outsized carbon footprint and lay it on the country itself, rather than American and European industry pinching pennies by fleeing restrictive environmental protections.
While one can certainly say that the lax standards carry part of the problem, laying the blame at production export countries to absolve oneself of responsibility is a farce that deserves to be called out at every opportunity.
The carbon loophole refers to the embodied greenhouse gas emissions associated with production of goods that are ultimately traded across countries. These emissions are a growing issue for global exports to decarbonize the world economy. Embodied emissions in trade are not accounted for in current greenhouse gas accounting systems.1 If they were, many promising climate trends would be negated or reversed. For example, many achievements of reducing emissions by developed countries under the Kyoto Protocol would actually appear as emissions outsourced to developing countries.
This report aims to provide a newly updated analysis of the carbon loophole, also known as imported consumption-based or embodied emissions, at the global level. Using the Eora global supply chain model, along with additional data, our analysis surveys global trends and does a deep dive into the countries and sectors most implicated in the carbon loophole. This report presents the latest available data (sourced from the Eora model with data year 2015, presented for the first time in this report) and paves the way for regular updates in analysis of the carbon loophole in the future.
[...] While virtually all goods carry with them some embodied emissions, two goods in particular stand out as heavily traded and carbon-intensive - also known as emissions-intensive trade-exposed (EITE) goods: steel and cement. The report looks closely at the embodied CO2 associated with the international trade of these two goods. The steel and cement sectors together represent over 10% of global anthropogenic CO2 emissions. We find that steel and clinker (a carbon-intensive intermediate product of cement) are mostly traded across very long distances outside of their region of production, while half of the cement trade is also extra-regional. In addition, world clinker trade has an embodied carbon footprint almost equal to that of cement itself. China, while slowing down as 'the world's factory', is still by far the biggest exporter of embodied emissions in steel. Meanwhile, embodied emissions from India have grown rapidly, with the U.S. as the largest recipient of embodied emissions in Indian goods.
It's actually both of those things. China became what it is because it had a perfect storm of low cost of living, lax environmental protections and an insanely large potential labour force. At the time when China exploded as the destination for manufacturing and assembly, no other country could match all 3 factors, and most still can't. But for the context of this discussion, lax environmental regulations is the factor in play. And it applies to ALL the countries that are production export countries like them in varying degrees, such as India, Indonesia, Bangladesh and others. China is merely the biggest player because of that previously-mentioned trifecta.That is certainly not what is happening. That issue doesn't have to do with "environmental protections" at all and more to do with average cost of living and profits. Especially in the case of America. Nearly everything imported to America can actually be sourced within the country but that would raise the prices across board for many items, introducing a change in lifestyle that would not be welcomed by the average citizen. The harming of the environment is a sidenote but one that is disturbing because it shows how self serving people and corporations will continue to be until the shit hits the fan.
Except he's right. With American industry definitely not interested in doing anything about China's contribution to climate change at their behest, the only one who can force the issue with any expediency is China itself. I'm not convinced that it will happen, that's for damn sure, but China holds a shit-ton of power wrt forcing a lasting solution, that cannot be denied.Again, who is making this point in this discussion? The OP I was replying to stated that China is our last hope, and I said they aren't. I didn't say "well China is the only one to blame" and that the west is acting like they're doing their bit, which we know is bollocks.
I'm sure it will be fine eventually. It is not that big a deal.
Serious question:
How should governments reduce carbon emissions of their nations? Mandate all electricity be renewable within the next 5 years? Ban the sale of ICE motor vehicles now and ban use entirely in 10 ? Put a quota on the number of flights per day/week/month/year? Put quotas on meat consumption? Limit sale/ownership of electronics? Ban single use anything?