China ready to step into US’s shoes if Donald Trump quits Paris climate treaty

[webfact]

China ready to step into US’s shoes if Donald Trump quits Paris climate treaty

Robert Hackwill

 

 

BEIJING: -- Demonstrators have been out in force at the COP 22 climate conference to urge the world leaders in Marrakesh to pull their fingers out and do something meaningful. But hanging over everything like a cloud is the doubt about America’s commitment once Donald Trump sits in the White House.

 

Trump’s election win has sent a shiver through the environmental movement, and the 2015 Paris agreement, so hard-won, looks in mortal danger.

 

In his campaign Trump promised to get America’s coalminers digging again, and increase fossil fuel production. So what if that sends CO2 levels through the roof?

 

Because for him, global warming is just a big con, a Chinese trick to raise costs in America and cripple its economy.

 

China, currently the world’s biggest polluter, sees American disengagement as the chance for it to spearhead the fight against climate change.

 

“China will take the lead, especially actively participating in all kinds of activities in drastic climate change. And also I think that China will totally, totally deal with climate change seriously,” says the Director of the Chinese National Centre for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation, Liu Qiang.

 

China’s reduction in coal use is mainly responsible for the stabilisation in global CO2 levels for the third successive year, from 2014. This good news, announced in Marrakesh, is encouraging.

 

However scientists warn that this does not mean the worst is over. Peak emissions are likely yet to come, and the global warming process continues. Like a supertanker, it is hard to stop.

 

“On instruments of record so far and if you look at the first nine months of this year, we are fairly high up again and we are breaking all the records. And it’s likely that we are going to reach this year 1.2 degrees warming level. We are going in the wrong direction if you think of the 1.5 degrees warming level which was agreed last year in Paris,” says the Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization, Petteri Taalas.

 

NASA data shows that atmospheric CO2 levels went above 400 parts per million for the first time in recorded history in 2013. In 1950 the then-historic level of 300 ppm was breached.

 

This has led scientists to conclude that current climate change is a scientific reality and that the Earth is about to enter a new geological era, the Anthropocene, when the climate is shaped and modified by human action and not the forces of nature.

 

 

-- © Copyright Euronews 2016-11-17

[craigt3365]

Quote

China’s reduction in coal use is mainly responsible for the stabilisation in global CO2 levels for the third successive year, from 2014. This good news, announced in Marrakesh, is encouraging.

 

The reduction is mainly due to their economy slowing.  Not proactive emissions controls.

[ilostmypassword]

 

1 hour ago, craigt3365 said:

 

The reduction is mainly due to their economy slowing.  Not proactive emissions controls.

Their economy's growth is slowing, it's not shrinking. So if the economy is growing and coal use is shrinking, that's a significant change. And the article said nothing about emission controls. It just said "reduction in coal use."

 

[Stargeezr]

 l love the picture of Bejing.  Yes China,  you  had better start  trying to  clean  up your air.   It is disgusting to have so much pollution  and  not make  the  best effort  to improve.    India  is a total disgrace,  but  with that  country,  profit  comes  first, corruption  is second,   then  me, me, me, attitude comes third.

Geezer

[Gary A]

What the experts fail to see is that it isn't CO2 that causes smog. 

[craigt3365]

18 minutes ago, ilostmypassword said:

 

Their economy's growth is slowing, it's not shrinking. So if the economy is growing and coal use is shrinking, that's a significant change. And the article said nothing about emission controls. It just said "reduction in coal use."

 

You can't trust the official numbers from the Chinese government.  Some well respected and independent organizations are saying the economy might actually be shrinking.  If not negative, barely positive.  China needs around 7% growth to keep it's population employed.  Aint' happening now.

[Grubster]

1 hour ago, Gary A said:

What the experts fail to see is that it isn't CO2 that causes smog. 

No but it comes from the same source.

[Grubster]

The west's big business has moved its operations to the east in order to not pay for less emissions. They obviously like the slave wages in the east too.  China will lead the way to clean air and less CO2, while North Korea leads the way for peace and human rights. Why doesn't anybody mention Methane Gas, by far the biggest contributor to global warming. Hmm could it be the power of the livestock industry.

[silent]

1 hour ago, Grubster said:

No but it comes from the same source.

It's not CO2, it's gasses, particulate matter, organic chemicals, and bullshit semantics that are the biggest problems.

[Grubster]

Just now, silent said:

It's not CO2, it's gasses, particulate matter, organic chemicals, and bullshit semantics that are the biggest problems.

Yes and from the same  exhaust pipes and stacks as the CO2 in most cases. I must say that the article is not related to the picture of a guy with a mask in a smog ridden city. Poor reporting that seems to be the norm these days.

[silent]

6 minutes ago, Grubster said:

Yes and from the same  exhaust pipes and stacks as the CO2 in most cases. I must say that the article is not related to the picture of a guy with a mask in a smog ridden city. Poor reporting that seems to be the norm these days.

Should take a drive through Sudbury Ontario and see what acid rain can do compared to agent orange.

[Baerboxer]

4 hours ago, ilostmypassword said:

 

Their economy's growth is slowing, it's not shrinking. So if the economy is growing and coal use is shrinking, that's a significant change. And the article said nothing about emission controls. It just said "reduction in coal use."

 

 

Go and take some deep breaths in Beijing or Shanghai or other large cities. You'll appreciate the significant "improvements".

[ilostmypassword]

2 hours ago, Grubster said:

The west's big business has moved its operations to the east in order to not pay for less emissions. They obviously like the slave wages in the east too.  China will lead the way to clean air and less CO2, while North Korea leads the way for peace and human rights. Why doesn't anybody mention Methane Gas, by far the biggest contributor to global warming. Hmm could it be the power of the livestock industry.

Not true
While methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2, there is over 200 times more CO2 in the atmosphere. Hence the amount of warming methane contributes is 28% of the warming CO2 contributes.

https://www.skepticalscience.com/methane-and-global-warming.htm

[elgordo38]

8 hours ago, webfact said:

 

China, currently the world’s biggest polluter, sees American disengagement as the chance for it to spearhead the fight against climate change.

The best present Santa could have put under China's Christmas tree was Donald Trump gift wrapped soother and all. The Mayhem Meister of 2017

[coma]

I am sure that all the old coal miners in the US are keen to "get back digging again" too.  

[Grubster]

3 minutes ago, ilostmypassword said:

Not true
While methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2, there is over 200 times more CO2 in the atmosphere. Hence the amount of warming methane contributes is 28% of the warming CO2 contributes.

https://www.skepticalscience.com/methane-and-global-warming.htm

Are you saying that all 200 times is over the needed amounts of CO2, we cannot survive without CO2 you know. Get back to me and let me know how much of that is over the acceptable limits. Makes a big Dif man. Not only that but the livestock industry uses the vast majority of the grain produced in the world driving the slash and burn on every continent. With the meat consumption today, you could use every acre of land including cities and slashed forest to free graze animals and you would still have less than half the meat used today.

            The livestock industry is far and away the biggest producer of both CO2 and methane, not to mention the chemicals used to grow these grains and the waste from the animals flowing into our rivers, lakes, and oceans making huge dead zones there.  The fossil fuel industry is probably less than 25% of the problem although many fertilizers and chemicals used in the farming industry are produced from oil.

           Even the Greenest of green action groups will not address this issue, many green activists in Brazil have been murdered for stating these facts publicly.

           If we all stopped eating meat today we would need less than one forth of the current farmland to feed the world, That said I'm going for steak tonight. I'm old now and just recently found these things out, so I guess I will just try to state the facts and let others digest them or deny them. If you are the first one to develop a good steak from vegetable matter or in a dish you will be a very rich man. Or dead.

[mrbojangles]

5 hours ago, Stargrazer9889 said:

 l love the picture of Bejing.  Yes China,  you  had better start  trying to  clean  up your air.

 

I might be wrong but I think the picture is of Shanghai. It looks like the Oriental Pearl in the piccie but difficult to tell in that smog.

[Opl]

Donald J. Trump

 

✔ @realDonaldTrump

The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.

20:15 - 6 Nov 2012

China Tells Trump That Climate Change Is No Hoax It Invented : " China couldn’t have invented global warming as a hoax to harm U.S. competitiveness because it was Donald Trump’s Republican predecessors who started climate negotiations in the 1980s, China’s Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin said."

 

This was long before China became interested in these negotiations aimed at curbing pollution. The site also recalls that Ronald Reagan's Secretary of State was "one of the most prominent Republicans expressing his concerns about global warming and the need for urgent action.

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-16/china-tells-trump-that-climate-change-is-no-hoax-it-invented

 

Edited November 17, 2016 by Opl

[tonbridgebrit]

19 hours ago, craigt3365 said:

 

The reduction is mainly due to their economy slowing.  Not proactive emissions controls.

Do you realise, that on a per person basis, the USA produces roughly twice as much carbon dioxide emissions as China ?   :)

Beijing has trotted out this comment to the media, because they want to make Washington look bad. This comment means that Beijing can say to the rest of the world "oh look, the Americans don't care about climate change, but hey, we in Beijing do care".

I think most of us reckon that China will simply carry on burning coal, I don't think they're that concerned about climate change.

 

[craigt3365]

2 hours ago, tonbridgebrit said:

Do you realise, that on a per person basis, the USA produces roughly twice as much carbon dioxide emissions as China ?   :)

Beijing has trotted out this comment to the media, because they want to make Washington look bad. This comment means that Beijing can say to the rest of the world "oh look, the Americans don't care about climate change, but hey, we in Beijing do care".

I think most of us reckon that China will simply carry on burning coal, I don't think they're that concerned about climate change.

 

Yes, not good stats.  I think China is #1 and US is #2.  US is #1 per capita.  But is also the #1 economy in the world.  Still, no excuse.  More can be done.