
World’s nations agree on rules to implement Paris climate deal - Tomte
https://www.politico.eu/article/worlds-nations-agree-on-rules-to-implement-paris-climate-deal/
======
CuriousSkeptic
“four oil and gas exporting countries — the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Russia and
Kuwait — rejected formally welcoming the report”

This part is just enraging. I mean, for USA, who won’t even participate in the
paris agreement, to show up at the meeting at all, just to sabotage and try to
derail the entire process.

It’s bad enough to not want to participate, but actively throw wrenches at the
people who do is just evil.

~~~
yostrovs
We thought the Paris Accord was already signed and everybody was happy with
each other except the US. But at least it was signed. Now we learn that
there's the implementation agreement on how to make the previous agreement
work. My question: when's the next meeting?

~~~
CuriousSkeptic
September next year
[http://www.un.org/en/climatechange/](http://www.un.org/en/climatechange/)

~~~
yostrovs
Thank you for the link. Here's the purpose of this, yet another, meeting:

"To support efforts to implement the Paris Agreement and to increase ambition
and climate action, UN Secretary-General António Guterres will bring world
leaders, from government, finance, business, and civil society to the Climate
Summit on 23 September 2019. He has asked these leaders to bring bold
announcements and actions to the Summit that will reduce emissions, strengthen
climate resilience, and mobilize political will for an ambitious and
meaningful agreement in Paris in December 2015."

Looks like success is guaranteed at this one. Nothing could possibly spoil the
party. I'm sure organic, responsibly harvested vodka will be served.

~~~
yostrovs
Just noticed that the UN has adopted the North Korean proud and motivating
writing style.

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londons_explore
Nothing will happen till a global carbon trading scheme exists and is
enforced...

More oil was burnt last week than ever.

[https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/weekly/article_images/twip1812...](https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/weekly/article_images/twip181212fig3.png)

~~~
hutzlibu
Nothing will happen before renewable energies are a better(cheaper)
alternative.

Otherwise all the oil will be burned, no matter how many global regulations
there are. There is no global governemnt which could enforce a carbon tradung
scheme and I doubt is is a good idea in the first place. Too complicated to
check and therefore too many holes to circumvent any regulation. And since
many states(and people) are really struggeling and in conflict, the danger of
global warming is too abstract for most, to provide enough motivation to
serious limit their economy which would weaken them, when they do not trust
their neibhours to follow it.

Also ... is it just? The west and especially the US used soo much more oil to
get to where we are now and now all the others who want to get in the same
place are supposed to not fuel/kickstart their economy like we did? I doubt
it.

So I would focus energy directly to invest in all the alternatives. The sun
still provides much much more energy than we need, we just have to use (and
store) it adequately. So lots of work to be done there, but we are getting to
it.

But I doubt the efficency of conferences. There have been so many and the
outcome so little than talk talk talk and some papers.

~~~
londons_explore
>Too complicated to check and therefore too many holes to circumvent any
regulation

This isn't really true. We could make a global rule that each country is only
allowed to extract a certain amount of oil, gas, or coal from the ground, and
if they want to extract more, they must buy the right to from another country
who does not. It's fairly easy to track that - it's quite hard to smuggle
millions of tonnes of coal!

That in turn will cause the price of oil, gas, and coal to include the
environmental cost. Suddenly, green technologies will be a sensible investment
because they are cheaper, rather than because they cause good PR.

How do you implement that? You get as many countries as possible to get on
board, have a big negotiating phase to decide the caps each country should
stick to, and then everyone sign a deal that they will close their borders to
any country who does not participate in the deal. That forces everyone to
participate unless they want to be the next North Korea.

~~~
hutzlibu
"We could make a global rule that each country is only allowed to extract a
certain amount of oil, gas, or coal from the ground, and if they want to
extract more, they must buy the right to from another country who does not.
It's fairly easy to track that - it's quite hard to smuggle millions of tonnes
of coal!"

So many glitches here.

If country A transports to country B which is their neibhour - who can check
how much was traded? You want to have the UN to check every border?

And then of course you can just use the coal directly and just export the gas
from which you can export much due to better carbon tax.

"You get as many countries as possible to get on board, have a big negotiating
phase to decide the caps each country should stick to"

and good luck with that. During sunshine days you get good intentions and when
tensions rise like they do now since a while, not even that anymore.

In my oppinion a waste alltogether. All those energies (and actual lots of
fossil energy used to make those conferences happen) should have gone to
really constructive things instead. Organizing cooperation in research.
Infrastructure. etc.

Technical solutions to a technical problem. You can't heat peoples homes nor
power industries with nice speeches or resolutions.

~~~
yostrovs
Young folks with great imagination and endless optimism about the human race
will not see these as problems that don't work in practice, that cause more
strife than they solve. Even some adults...

~~~
hutzlibu
Well, I suppose I have great imagination and optimism (and youth) too, but
that is also why I do not want a political enforced solution. I am optimistic
that humankind as its whole, will see the benefits of overcoming the dirty
fossil technology on their own. Also for cleaner air, cities, etc.

~~~
arbitrary_name
Your perspective holds no water whatsoever. Clean air can be enjoyed by
someone actively polluting the air for their neighbours. Or water downstream.
So don't act like it's as simple as us deciding to act. It requires a
consistent solution that will impose costs on some participants and less cost
on others.

Almost 40 years of proven science and we're sitting on our hands.

And don't get me started on the fact that the current approach of ignoring the
problem, sabotaging efforts and rolling back legislation is a politically
enforced solution itself, of the negative type. More than half Of all us
citizens recognise climate change as a threat and want something done. We have
leadership that have hijacked that will to stifle progress.

~~~
hutzlibu
Polluting a river is something very direct and very visible. Also therefore
directly punishable if people violate it. It makes sense for the average Joe,
that weird chemicals from a factory don't belong in a river.

But in the contrast declaring CO2 as bad is something very arbitary. We all
exhale CO2. So suddenly CO2 is bad, exhaling is bad?? ... is a bit off worlds
for the common people. As CO2 clearly is something normal. Nature needs CO2.

The excess is the problem. That we suddenly release all the stored carbons
from millenias. But still this is less clear. How much is too much. Because
burning fires is something humans do since we are humans - very counter
intuitive to declare it all wrong now.

So corrupt leadership is not really the problem if the common people are not
fully convinced that CO2 is really that bad. And we are talking about the
global population. Not just the intellectuals in the western world.

And even if they are aware that it is not ideal - if they feel cold now, they
will burn coal to warm themself now, if they lack (affordable) alternatives.
(I do). So they also would not push their politicans to forbid this. And in a
democracy it is the will of the common people that matters. So the problem is
just a little bit more complicated, than you make it. Saying politics should
do something is easy - but is still not a real solution.

Solutions would be affordable alternatives. And if you look at the
developement of prices of solar panels and batteries for example ... you see
that change is happening. I just don't see it is comming from politics.
Politics can maybe help the process, yes. But not so easy. As out whole
industry is based on fossil energy. Changing that simply takes time. So teach
people about is, yes. But don't preach to them nor force them. Otherwise they
will circumvent it.

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anonymouzz
Why is no one talking about alternative means to cooling the planet, like
aerosols?

[https://edition-m.cnn.com/2018/11/23/health/sun-dimming-
aero...](https://edition-m.cnn.com/2018/11/23/health/sun-dimming-aerosols-
global-warming-intl-scli/index.html?r=https%3A%2F%2Fduckduckgo.com%2F)

This would be a great opportunity for stalling (or even reverting) part of the
problem till batteries and other clean products get crazy cheap.

Edit: I think this is important because it's much more doable. It is a much
easier sell - fits the general story of economic growth, that almost everyone
believes that economies (especially their economy) should expand. This would
be a cross-national collaboration in which many people would take pride (we
own the planet, and we're handling it well) and could have technological side
effects like the flight to the moon. The current ideas which find it hard to
get themselves divorced from slowing down economies are simply much less
palatable.

~~~
StavrosK
Because we're probably going to screw it up even worse, I guess.

~~~
anonymouzz
Yeah I get that fear, but the truth is we'd already be over 2*C if not the
aerosols that humans released:
[https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/img/figure/figure2_1.png](https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/img/figure/figure2_1.png)

These took out much of the heat from greenhouse gasses. And in my opinion you
either buy the climate change models (which are very aware of aerosols), or
you don't. It doesn't make sense to believe that the planet will heat up more,
that it is due to humans, but aerosols are not a part of the story.

~~~
StavrosK
Huh, that's interesting, I didn't know that. The problem is that it might cool
the planet, but might cause other issues that we'll have to deal with. It
might be a good plan B, though.

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shard972
Can someone explain why the deal caps carbon output to a set amount per
country and not per capita? It seems like it heavily benefits countries like
China who have many more times the population of smaller countries who are
currently trying to increase their population size.

It seems difficult to reduce carbon, while adding carbon based lifeforms that
breathe carbon, eat things that create more carbon and use electricity which
creates more carbon.

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triviatise
the only thing that has to happen is that each country that believes in
climate change just needs to tax oil (and coal) at a slow, but ever increasing
rate. It will incentivize a shift to alternate energy.

Instead govts love to ban, control, mandate, and penalize.

~~~
IAmEveryone
I don quite see you distinction between “control, mandate, penalize”, and
“tax”.

~~~
triviatise
In one case you ban something and penalize people for the behavior in the
other case you tax it, which lets people decide whether they want to continue
the behavior.

For example in austin they banned bags. They then spent 3 million in marketing
to let people know about the ban. If they taxed it they would have generated
revenue and reduced bag usage. Yet people or stores that really needed to use
bags could still do it.

Another example, we had a drought. The city restricted use of water. They
hired a ton of people to enforce the bans and gave out fines to those who got
caught. Water use dropped, but then the water utility started losing money so
they had to raise prices. If they had instead just taxed the higher tiers of
usage, water use would have dropped. People that had a need to use more water
could still do it. People could make tradeoffs, like Im not going to wash my
clothes but I am going to wash my car. Instead the city decided for us which
water using behaviors were acceptable and which were not.

