US Has Largest Decline In Carbon Emissions...

[seer]

Intersting...

CO₂ emissions
Global CO2 emissions from energy in 2017 grew by 1.6%, rebounding from the stagnant volumes during 2014-2016, and faster than the 10-year average of 1.3%

Declines were led by the US (-0.5%). This is the ninth time in this century that the US has had the largest decline in emissions in the world. This also was the third consecutive year that emissions in the US declined, though the fall was the smallest over the last three years.

Carbon emissions from energy use from the US are the lowest since 1992, the year that the UNFCCC came into existence. The next largest decline was in Ukraine (-10.1%).

The largest increase in carbon emissions in 2017 came from China (1.6%), a reversal from the past three years when the largest increases in emissions came from India. China’s emissions in 2017 were 0.3% higher than the previous peak in 2014. China has had the world’s largest increments in carbon emission every year this century except in four years – 2000 and between 2014-16.

https://www.bp.com/en/global/corpora...emissions.html

[One Bad Pig]

That many manufacturing jobs have moved from here to China is not an immaterial part of the shift in both places.

[seer]

That many manufacturing jobs have moved from here to China is not an immaterial part of the shift in both places.

There is also other factors like efficiency:

Because capitalism, unlike socialism and its welfare-state kin, hates waste. So it does all it can to be efficient. That means using as little energy as possible to make things. And this predates any of the current CO2 hysteria.

In the U.S., the data are clear and utterly convincing: In 1949, it took 1,098 metric tons of CO2 emissions to produce $1 million in the U.S., after adjusting for inflation. Today, it takes just 301 metric tons to produce that same million dollars, after inflation — a 73 percent gain in carbon efficiency.

https://www.investors.com/politics/e...content=social

And we are still beating other western countries, even if we leave China in the picture.

[Teallaura]

That many manufacturing jobs have moved from here to China is not an immaterial part of the shift in both places.

Yeah, that.

[KingsGambit]

The decline of the coal industry probably comes into play too.

[Starlight]

US Has Largest Decline In Carbon Emissions...

Does that mean you're happy to join the Paris Agreement now? Consider:

- Literally every other country in the world has committed to the Paris Agreement, many people around the world think Climate Change is the #1 challenge humanity currently faces - the US is missing out on a massive opportunity for a global leadership role for itself by opting out.
- The Paris Agreement requires countries commit to accurately estimating their emissions and publishing that data, and commit to lowering their emissions. The US appears to be doing both, so what's the downsides of being in the agreement?

Oh, and there are some important weasel words in the link. It's carbon emissions from energy use. Energy use is only a small subset of total US carbon emissions*, and it's not clear to me from reading their methodology whether they are including the 'manufacturing' sector generally in this so the discussions about manufacturing jobs moving to China may be irrelevant to this article. They seem to be focusing primarily on electricity generation. They also don't appear to be paying attention to carbon-equivalent emissions such as methane (methane is a much worse greenhouse gas than CO2 but it is typically emitted in much smaller amounts), so processes such as fracking which decrease CO2 emissions but increase methane emissions make the CO2-only numbers look better than the realities of the situation.

* Here's a graph from the EPA website on the subject:

[Teallaura]

The decline of the coal industry probably comes into play too.

That doesn't make sense - China is heavily dependent on coal and has been growing its use exponentially for a couple decades - they'd have to have a massive recession to shutter enough plants for that.


You meant the US...


I don't see a net gain when you transfer a problematic fuel from a highly regulated to a barely regulated environment.

[rogue06]

Does that mean you're happy to join the Paris Agreement now?

It means we don't have to. We're doing fine by ourselves.

[KingsGambit]

That doesn't make sense - China is heavily dependent on coal and has been growing its use exponentially for a couple decades - they'd have to have a massive recession to shutter enough plants for that.


You meant the US...


I don't see a net gain when you transfer a problematic fuel from a highly regulated to a barely regulated environment.

I'm part of an organized trivia competition online (one that has a lot of ex-Jeopardy champions). There was a side competition on climate change two days ago, and one of the questions showed the chart of reduced emissions with the goal of tying it to reduced coal, so it was fresh on my mind

[seer]

Does that mean you're happy to join the Paris Agreement now?

Why since we are doing better than other western countries as we are? We are doing better than you:

New Zealand’s net greenhouse gas emissions increased 54 percent between 1990 and 2014. Total emissions increased 23 percent.
A total of 24.4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent was removed from the atmosphere in 2014, equivalent to 30 percent of New Zealand’s total greenhouse gas emissions that year. There has been a 16 percent decline in removals since 1990.
Trees absorb carbon dioxide as they grow, and so remove it from the atmosphere. The increase in net emissions and decrease in removals are partly explained by the large quantity of forests planted in the early 1990s, which are now mature or have been harvested.

http://archive.stats.govt.nz/browse_...emissions.aspx

We are back to 1992 levels, while you have increased 23%!!!!!!