what's public opinion on climate change/kyoto protocol?

The devil is in the details.

What is China doing to reduce emissions? We know they are permitting a new coal fired plant per week. What cost do we impose upon our standard of living in order to *possibly* impact climate change. What impact overall would it have if the US reduced emissions, only to have developing countries spewing out emissions at a much faster rate?

Weather forecasters can't predict TOMORROW's weather, much less the impact of carbon emissions on the future's weather. No one knows *for sure* what impact humans are really having on the earth's highly complex climate conditions. To make policy based on speculative scientific analysis is not wise.

 

Baloney.

The US is environmentally backward, but China is no better. And will soon be much worse.

 

The biggest reason the US has not ratified Kyoto is because the developing countries are not asked to make meaningful emissions cuts under Kyoto. That includes China and India. You say that the world is satisfied with China's efforts to reduce emissions, that is not true. Kevin Rudd, Australia's new prime minister came out just the other day and publicly stated that China needs to do more. China's economy is heavily dependent upon coal. They mine twice as much as the US each year. Any cuts the US makes in emissions would be totally wiped out by Chinese growth in emissions. Others have echoed Rudd's comments, and frankly I agree with him.

There are two problems with Kyoto:
1) Uncertainty regarding what benefits carbon emissions cuts will have.
2) The fairness of the agreement as it relates to developed countries (US) versus undeveloped countries (China, India, etc).

 

Problem 2 is legitimate. "Problem" 1 is spurious.

 

yuantian,

my 2 cents, US Americans take this very seriously. Let's ignore Kyoto for now.*

An increasing number of cities and states are passing emissions and energy standards, separate from the federal government. California and New York are two very large players, but they are hardly alone. As more cities and states pass their own standards, federal inaction will become more and more irrelevant, on a practical level.

And actually, if you look at the new energy bill coming out of congress, it's very encouraging. (Yes, probable veto, but that says more about Bush than the country.)

Meanwhile, businesses are figuring out that a great gob of money can be made via alternative energy and sustainable business practices. I've seen an increasing number of new firms with such business models. China capitalists (yes, that's what I said) also get this, and an increasing number of Chinese companies will be competing with the new wave of US energy companies.

So there's a ton going on here. The market is going to take care of the old, sad nag that is oil, via good old normal capitalism. Oil industry subsidies will die out due to public pressure as well, and basic political necessity (wrt Middle East). And local politics combined with cultural movement are going to trump bad federal policies. I'm obviously very rosy about the picture in the US, but I've been monitoring it pretty closely. It's the most important topic confronting us, in my view, especially as it influences just about every other area, from international relations to public health...


* = Kyoto was more designed to get the international community talking about the problem, than actually accomplishing anything... and it's mission is accomplished. The whole world is grappling with the issue now.

 

Ever been to Beijing? Worst air quality in the world.

 

It's slowly happening in the US too. The Christmas tree at Rockefeller in NYC is now solar powered, I see soloar powered traffic signals for school zones all over the place, and the economics of solar power for home use are slowly getting better (IMO, the real issue there is energy storage).

That happened in the US during the 1960s/1970s. Problem is that now production is overcoming the pollution prevention technology in terms of air/water quality.

 

Sizzle Chest,
I have a question for you. What benefits will accrue to mankind by cutting CO2 emissions?

Mil gracias

 

What's China doing about the environment?

1. Self-imposed target in the current 5 year plan to reduce emissions by 5%.
2. Hu Jintao urging an environmentally friendly economy in the latest NPC meeting, though nobody put him up to it
3. Moving from a virtually non-existent car emissions standard to one far more stringent than that in the US
4. Investing and putting into use alternative sources of energy
5. The world's largest reuse/recycle program since the middle of the last century, long before those "environmentalist" Scandinavian countries even thought of it
6. The world's first self-sustaining city (that would be rather interesting to see I think)

You know what the funny thing is? The vast majority of emissions in China DON'T come from its industries, as certain ignorant posters would have you believe. The vast majority of them come from basic necessities. The largest coal burners are not electric plants in China, it's the average citizen, some of which are still burning coal for heating.

The environment sucks over there, but at least they are doing something about it. It would also be less ironic if their per capita emissions are not several times lower than that of the US, EU, Japan, etc, including those "world environment setters" Scandinavian countries.

 

That sounds awesome, though realize that in the US even when the Federal government isn't making as big of moves, the state government in the U.S. is constantly moving towards more stringent policies (though it's on a state by state basis).

I don't think you can look at things purely on per capita because in the end nation as a whole is still producing a ton of waste (China is still paying for Mao's good mother policies). There's just too many people on the earth today, especially in developing nations while the developed nations have people shy away from big family as a life style choice. I actually love the one child policy in China and think that countries like India should do it also.

Regarding the car emission standards, I love to see how that actually play out. I can see one two things happening, traffic in China will actually be better as all the older vehicles are foced into retirement/demolitioned. On the other hand, I've seen too many one eye opened, one eye closed attitude in China on many issues (Piracy and IP standards, bribery, prostitution, etc.) that this could be something while officially denounced, the outcry/enforcement troubles woud be great enough that nothing really get done.

 

I agree with you. Whether the plans will be realized is one thing, but at least Hu has point himself in the bull's eye. Nobody forced him to do it. He would have easily given a mouth piece speech. As of now, if it doesn't at least come somewhat close to target, people can call him a lying sack of you know what.

As far as emission goes, couple years ago they introduced a new policy that all cars must be demolished 10 years after their initial purchase. Past policy was based on kilometres driven, but they figured out that many people knows how to tinker with the odometre. In a way, it is one way to reduce emission from use of old car technology.

As far as prostitution goes. Think of it really, what can the government really do about it?

As for IP, I think you are wrong there. It is one issue the central government at least, takes very seriously. The problem isn't policy. The problem is enforcement. You hear Rice/Paulson/whoever go on TV and say China's piracy is costing American business $4 billion a year (overstated, but that's another issue). What they don't say is how much it is costing Chinese businesses.

For example, piracy is the reason copyrighted CD's from Chinese artists cost about $3, because the pirated version costs $1 to $2. It is the reason that they only expect to make money from concerts instead of CD's. Piracy hurts Chinese businesses a lot more than they hurt American ones.

But that's going off topic a bit. I think the whole world can do with a bit more emissions standards. Here's something I'm very fascinated to see come to fruitation, the self-sustaining city:

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,6903,1635188,00.html

 

Forgot one thing. I disagree with you that per capita emissions is deceptive. As you've mentioned, I do think places like India need population growth, but you know what, I've always wondered, how much electricity would the US save if they just turned all those light off at the end of the day (businesses especially) like they do in China. I would be very interested to find the answer.

 

I'm very much in favor of greenhouse gas emissions reductions, but also very much against Kyoto because it is not a fair deal for coal-heavy economies.

Chindia is the world's worst pollution offender. 8 of the top 10 most polluted cities are in those two countries, with the other two being in Egypt and Indonesia (http://envirostats.info/2007/08/25/0330/). The Olympics in China are going to bring this very real atrocity to the worldwide public. The PRC can't hide it forever. Athletes will have to train to endure the incredibly awful pollution in Beijing. All this talk about China taking steps to reduce emissions doesn't mean squat when you're building a coal plant a week. It's all fluff coming from their government - they care about the economy, not the environment.