Why do we need the Paris agreement?

[seer]

Our carbon footprint today is at 1992 levels, yes a lot of that has to do with fracking, but is there another country that can claim the same?


U.S. Outshines Other Countries in CO2 Emissions Reductions

http://instituteforenergyresearch.or...ns-reductions/

A 20-Year Low in U.S. Carbon Emissions

https://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012...missions/?_r=0

Evil Texas has more wind power by far than any other state

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_p...d_States#Texas

Wind, solar and natural gas are becoming common place across the US, and we are reducing our Co2 output, so why do we need the Paris Accords? Or is it more about the redistribution of wealth?

[Mountain Man]

"Why do we need the Paris agreement?"

We don't. Its only real purpose was to economically hamstring the US to make things more "fair" for other countries.

[seer]

"Why do we need the Paris agreement?"

We don't. Its only real purpose was to economically hamstring the US to make things more "fair" for other countries.

Given our reduction of carbon over the last 20 years I can only agree with you!

[Sparko]

"Why do we need the Paris agreement?"

We don't. Its only real purpose was to economically hamstring the US to make things more "fair" for other countries.

someone has to be the fall guy.

[Jedidiah]

Our carbon footprint today is at 1992 levels, yes a lot of that has to do with fracking, but is there another country that can claim the same?


U.S. Outshines Other Countries in CO2 Emissions Reductions

http://instituteforenergyresearch.or...ns-reductions/

A 20-Year Low in U.S. Carbon Emissions

https://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012...missions/?_r=0

Evil Texas has more wind power by far than any other state

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_p...d_States#Texas

Wind, solar and natural gas are becoming common place across the US, and we are reducing our Co2 output, so why do we need the Paris Accords? Or is it more about the redistribution of wealth?

It is all about putting our wealth into various private pockets. We can do it on our own at far less cost.

And since when does a nations pledge mean anything at all?

[Mountain Man]

It is all about putting our wealth into various private pockets. We can do it on our own at far less cost.

And since when does a nations pledge mean anything at all?

It's a formal treaty which can be enforced. The liberal narrative that it's a harmless, non-binding gentleman's agreement is a lie.

[rogue06]

It's a formal treaty which can be enforced. The liberal narrative that it's a harmless, non-binding gentleman's agreement is a lie.

FWIU it was never even put before the Senate by Obama and therefore obviously not ratified so it is not a treaty, but signed by Obama by means of his "I've Got a Pen and I've Got a Phone" policy. This of course meant that any future president, such as Trump, could opt out of it the same way.

[Starlight]

Our carbon footprint today is at 1992 levels

Cool, but the US, China and the EU remain the top emitters globally. Mostly addressing the climate change problem is about them doing something about it.

I don't care what in particular they do about it, as long as they do more to limit emissions and stop destroying the planet so much. Their options include:
- Planting lots and lots of trees, either in the US or another country.
- Subsidizing coal & oil less.
- Subsidizing renewables more.
- Shutting down existing fossil fuel power plants and building renewable ones (solar, wind, nuclear etc).
- Investing in electric cars and building a grid of charging stations.
- Altering methods of agricultural production to produce less emissions
- Creating a carbon tax to economically disincentivise emissions.
- Investing in green tech research and development.
etc.

Personally if I were running the US, I'd pick "all of the above".

FWIU it was never even put before the Senate by Obama and therefore obviously not ratified so it is not a treaty

The international community wanted a binding treaty, but Obama's negotiators said it would have to be a non-binding one because Obama was aware there was zero chance of getting the sociopath Republican Senators to ratify it. Now that the US has pulled out, the international community could up it to a binding treaty I guess, although the point of the agreement was more about everyone agreeing on the general goals (keep global temperatures from getting more than 2 degrees hotter) and setting up a framework by which every country would come up with a plan to monitor and reduce emissions and submitting those plans for review over the next few years as well as publishing all emissions data.

Why we need to deal with human-caused climate change in general can be seen by this XKCD illustration - the artist has a PhD in science and has plotted climate data over the last 22,000 years. As can be seen, over the last 22,000 years the earth has naturally warmed out of an ice age where Boston was under a literal mile of ice, up to the current temperatures. But in the 21st century alone, human emissions look poised to warm global temperatures by as much as they naturally warmed in the last 22,000 years combined! We'll get to see what a reverse-ice-age looks like within a single century. Presumably that will mean all the ice in the antarctic and Greenland will fully melt, global sea levels will rise destroying vast amounts of valuable coastal real estate and submerging the majority of Florida and NY City, most of the Middle East and much of Africa will turn to complete desert and become uninhabitable by humans creating literally a billion refugees, and probably much of what is currently functional farmland will became unfarmable due to the altered climate.

[seer]

Cool, but the US, China and the EU remain the top emitters globally. Mostly addressing the climate change problem is about them doing something about it.

The point is we are doing something. How many other countries are back to 1992 levels? And we don't need international agreements to act. BTW your time line is to short after all the whole earth was once tropical.

[Mountain Man]

FWIU it was never even put before the Senate by Obama and therefore obviously not ratified so it is not a treaty, but signed by Obama by means of his "I've Got a Pen and I've Got a Phone" policy. This of course meant that any future president, such as Trump, could opt out of it the same way.

It should have been put before the Senate because it has every characteristic of a treaty. Even the Huffington Post agrees.

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/9914606

Although one can question whether a treaty entered into by the US against the Constitution can really be binding.

[Starlight]

BTW your time line is to short after all the whole earth was once tropical.

The earth was one a ball of fiery dust without an atmosphere. Fortunately humans didn't have to live on it at the time.

What is over interest is the period over which humans have lived on earth. Human-caused climate change is in danger of making temperature alterations to the planet of a level that humans have never had to endure before anytime in the last 22,000 years and that included enduring an ice age. Babies being born now may experience in their lifetime changes to the planet's temperature, atmosphere, and oceanic systems that are greater than the cumulative total change since humanity began. Hopefully they can survive it, but it's not likely to be pleasant for them, anymore than a glacier a mile thick covering Boston and NY City would be.

Slow change would be okay, because people can move and ecosystems can adapt. But such rapid change over a decades is going to be a big problem. Maybe a billion African and Middle Eastern refugees will have to move to America.

[TheWall]

Calling Republicans sociopaths does not negate them. Here is a suggestion nuclear power.

[Darth Executor]

People don't believe Starlight's apocalyptic BS precisely because they don't act the least bit like it's really gonna happen.

[Starlight]

Calling Republicans sociopaths does not negate them.

Unfortunately no. Fortunately they're dying off.

Here is a suggestion nuclear power.

I think it's a good idea in general, yes. Although Fukashima demonstrates it's not a great idea to build one in the world's most earthquake prone region and then have really really bad safety standards.

Some of the newer experimental reactor designs look like they might have merit. And fusion power will, fingers crossed, be eventually a good choice. The general problem with fusion power is that the bigger the reactor the better it works - the sun is a good-sized example of a working fusion reactor!

[Tassman]

People don't believe Starlight's apocalyptic BS precisely because they don't act the least bit like it's really gonna happen.

But they do, there are 195 countries committed to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions as part of the 2015 agreement. Even in the US representatives of American cities, states and companies are preparing to submit a plan to the United Nations pledging to meet the United States’ greenhouse gas emissions targets under the Paris climate accord... despite President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the agreement.

All Trump has succeeded in doing is hand a huge advantage to the Chinese, because the one thing they will do and have already signalled they will do, is claiming the mantle of the global leader on climate change. This will play right into their narrative that China is the ascendant global superpower and the United States is a nation in decline.