
Things to Know About China in the Paris Climate Agreemen - devy
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2017/02/09/414850/3-things-americans-should-know-about-china-in-the-paris-climate-agreement/
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contingencies
_Melanie Hart is a Senior Fellow and Director of China Policy at the Center
for American Progress._

Uhuh.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_American_Progress](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_American_Progress)

 _Founder: John Podesta_

Uhuh.

As someone who lives in China, in what must be the world's center for
hydropower (the south-east Himlayan region), where a huge number of people get
around on e-bikes and you never see a Tesla, I remain skeptical of US
commitment to clean energy. So should you.

China makes most of everything for everyone, including solar panels.
Residential energy consumption per-capita is rising but still far beneath
western levels. Industrial consumption frequently has a significant export
component and thus that pollution is essentially outsourced... any direct
comparison is therefore flawed.

~~~
peteretep

        > Founder: John Podesta
        > Uhuh.
    

Ad hominem

    
    
        > As someone who lives in 
        > ... world's center for 
        > hydropower ... you never see
        > a Tesla ... skeptical of US 
        > commitment to clean energy
    

I genuinely fail to understand how your anecdotal points are intended to fit
together.

~~~
jakeogh
Checkout Skippy's email.

~~~
peteretep
That is also meant to mean something, but I have no idea what.

~~~
contingencies
[https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/](https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/)

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pessimizer
1 thing that US propagandists consistently fail to mention about China's
emissions is that, per capita, they are less than half of those of the United
States. If you mention that, they accuse you of "whataboutism" as if comparing
the total emissions of Austin, TX and Los Angeles is a reasonable and totally
not intentionally deceptive thing to do.

It's biased to refer to a system that expects countries with far less per
capita emissions to reduce at the same rate as countries with two or three
times their rates as "bifurcated." "Bifurcated" could just as easily refer to
the rate of the reduction, or to the per capita targets of that reduction. The
system can't help but be bifurcated when dealing with polluters as bad as the
United States.

It's a paranoid work of art to both make China out to be a threat because it
could pollute too much, and also a threat because it could develop green
technology and apply it too quickly, in the same document.

~~~
jimlawruk
Good point. In the US, per capita carbon emmissions also vary wildly by state.
[http://www.eia.gov/environment/emissions/state/analysis/](http://www.eia.gov/environment/emissions/state/analysis/)

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kriro
One thing Chinese should know about the United States in the Paris Climate
Agreement: many people in the U.S., including elected officials and
influential folks don't actually believe global warming is a thing.

I know it may sound far fetched for a country that hosts the most renown
universities in the world but it is what it is.

~~~
senorjazz
Do they really though? I am from the UK and I see it on the news, read it in
the newspapers that some elected official comes out with (what I am assuming
is the party line) "Climate change is unknown, the science is undecided,
humans have no part to play in the change in climate"....

But surely, they don't "believe" it. They must be somewhat educated to get
elected to office. Surely they see the evidence of 97 scientists saying "yes"
and 3 saying "no" who all have ties to big oil.

There is no debate about it any more, the scientific is as close to unanimous
on the answer as it is possible to get.

How can they possibly deny it? Is it purely political? Is it bribes - sorry
lobbying - money that blinds them? Is it religion? Is it just ignorance. I
just cannot get my head round it.

There is no other comparable country with the same view that I am aware.

~~~
mistermann
I've read that the 97% statistic isn't accurate, for example:

[http://www.nationalreview.com/article/425232/climate-
change-...](http://www.nationalreview.com/article/425232/climate-change-no-
its-not-97-percent-consensus-ian-tuttle)

Personally, my _perception_ is that it is much, much, _much_ warmer now than
when I was a child 40 years ago, and I can't think of anyone I've ever talked
to on the subject that disagrees.

And yet:

[https://globalclimate.ucr.edu/resources.html#q3](https://globalclimate.ucr.edu/resources.html#q3)

 _Averaged over all land and ocean surfaces, temperatures have warmed roughly
1.33°F (0.74ºC) over the last century, according to the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (see page 2 of the IPCC 's Climate Change 2007:
Synthesis Report Summary for Policymakers (PDF))._

~~~
danbruc
Because the temperature change is accelerating, the increase is concentrated
towards the end of the period. But much more importantly, an increase of the
global average temperature by X°C does not mean that it is more or less
exactly X°C warmer everywhere every time. Changes are concentrated in time and
space.

I could also imagine quite well that the perception gets distorted. One may be
much less likely to notice a change from 24°C plus or minus 1°C in summer than
to notice that there is less time with snow because the temperature that used
to be just below freezing point got pushed just slightly above it.

Especially in places where the temperature used to hover just around freezing
point for a long time, even a pretty small increase in temperature might
easily shorten the perceived duration of winter as indicated by snow lying
around by weeks.

I also wonder whether growing up on itself makes a difference. Time speeds up
as we grow older and a meter of snow looks certainly very different to me
today than it look to me when I was a small child.

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oculusthrift
Just plug your ears. Close your eyes. And repeat the holy chant, "America is
#1". While our rivers run thick with coal sludge, our water is full of lead,
and we ravage our environment.

~~~
idra
That's what they do in China (of course replacing "America #1" with "China
#1"), it's been quite successful so far.

~~~
quonn
So successful that people have to wear smog masks in the cities.

~~~
senorjazz
From what I understand, the Chinese know they have a problem. They are not
denying climate change, they are not burying their head in the sand and are
actively talking about and planning for the future and the changes required.

I am fairly sure no high ranking official is blaming it as a "US hoax"

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hutzlibu
"That commitment requires China to build and install 800 gigawatts to 1,000
gigawatts of new wind, solar, NUCLEAR, and other renewable energy generation
facilities by 2030"

Nuclear green and renewable? But Ok, this sentence you can understand in
another way but not together with:

"China has committed to build a renewables-only system that is equivalent to
the entire U.S. electricity system by 2030. This nonfossil fuel target is the
deepest hook in China’s Paris commitments. It is already creating massive
demand for new clean energy technologies"

All talking about green, renewable energy and specifically in the context of
the 1000 GW from before, what INCLUDES nuclear.

And even though I prefer (proper) nuclear plants over coal, I think you can't
really put wind and solar energy together with nucleaer in the same bag and
label it as green and renewable. So the article is either intentionally
missleading, or dumb.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Renewable? Sure, you can't. But just _green energy_? Any article that does
_not_ put nuclear in the green bag is misleading.

~~~
aaron695
>Renewable? Sure, you can't.

This silly if it runs out in a million years you can't call it renewable is
just that, silly.

As long as it lasts a 100 years it's renewable. If we don't have solar etc up
and running by then we never will.

~~~
hutzlibu
"As long as it lasts a 100 years it's renewable."

Not really, a good option for now, yes, but not renewable, so nothing
sustainable in the long run.

Which is why I disagree to put it together with solar and wind, because as
long as the sun shines, there will be energy.

So yes:

" If we don't have solar etc up and running by then we never will"

Nuclear as transition and backup, but not propagate it as green and awesome.
And with progress on medicine, many people on earth now can hope to live 100
more years. (or even 1000 years)

~~~
TeMPOraL
But it _is_ both green and awesome. It's just isn't "renewable". Good for
transition period, and should be enough to last until we finally crack fusion.

~~~
hutzlibu
So fusion in 20 years?

I don't get it, why not just use the big fusion reactor right out there? There
are plenty of deserts out there and enough storage technologies avaiable,
which does not need a breakthrough. Improvements, yes, but renewable
technology is allready good as it is.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Because the big fusion reactor is _very, very far_ from us, and our
technological civilization uses _a lot_ of power. Renewables tend to suck on
the energy-per-square-meter metric, and we need the land for other things
(like agriculture).

Also, the question should be reversed. Is irrational fear of nuclear energy a
good reason to abandon it and instead pave over the Sahara desert?

~~~
nl
_Renewables tend to suck on the energy-per-square-meter metric_

There are many reasonable criticisms of renewables, but this isn't one. For
example the largest aggregate solar deployments are rooftop solar in cities.
Wind and geothermal are both much smaller than non-renewable sources.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Rooftop solars are good at replacing _some_ of the use of residents -
especially the wealthy ones that have _houses_. That doesn't cover urban
areas, where people live in blocks of flats; that doesn't cover skyscrapers,
which have important efficiency benefits. And most importantly, that doesn't
cover _industrial_ use of energy.

Land use for power sources is still an important metric.

~~~
nl
There are many, many urban and industrial rooftop installations.

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amarant
I hate to say it but the Chinese Regime actually looks more fit to govern than
Trumps administration...now some might take that as a blow against democracy,
but I'd rather think of it as "With great freedom comes great responsibility"
Democracy didn't fail, America did...

~~~
HalfwayToDice
I read your comment to my Chinese friends in the office. They are still
laughing at what you wrote.

~~~
privateprofile
I wonder if they'd still feel like laughing if their family depended on the
State Bureau of Letters and Calls [1] for the defence of their basic human
rights.

[1] [http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-
china-39137293](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-39137293)

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necessity
Hum no. Clean energy is precisely _less_ efficient. If it truly was more
efficient everyone would be using it. It has a potential to be, but it isn't
there yet.

~~~
heroprotagonist
That's a good point.

The lack of complete efficiency, while keeping it sustainable, is a driving
force behind a lot of the innovation in the energy sector.

If climate denial in the United States results in them ceding energy
innovation to China, then ultimately those parties in China who are building
the efficiency gains will gain the most from it. They won't just be
manufacturers of the end products anymore. Their companies will potentially
dominate the market for various technology as efficiency further improves.

