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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: New Climate Change Deal
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
Here's the announcement.
The headlines look good but previous experience advises caution. No doubt a lot more details will emerge.
But I found this comment welcome.
quote:
The text agreed accepts that the dangers of climate change are much greater than previously acknowledged and pledges to attempt to curb the emissions.
We haven't had a climate change thread for a little while so I thought this latest deal might prove a decent starting point for Shipmates' views, hopes and fears.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Mr Clingford
Shipmate
# 7961
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Posted
Hooray! It should be he start to avert the end of civilisation in the second half of the 20th Century. Yes, it's not ideal and doesn't go far enough now but it is the start.
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Ne'er cast a clout till May be out.
If only.
Posts: 1660 | From: A Fleeting moment | Registered: Jul 2004
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
How will it stop India drowning Bangladesh?
The beginning of sorrows.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
It's probably the first time that the international political community has recognised the reality of our adverse impact on the global climate, and the consequences of that for all of us and that (as always) the poorest will suffer the most for the excesses of the rich. They're 30 years behind the science, but it's a significant statement.
The measures suggested would have been excessive 20 years ago, but are now almost certainly too little. But, even a small step towards a reduction in carbon emissions is better than continuing on the road to increasing emissions.
There are plenty of obstacles in the way of even the modest proposals announced, it only takes one of the morons standing for the Republican presidential candidacy to gain more influence to derail the US proposals to cut emissions, and then if the US fails many other nations will use that as an excuse to avoid trying.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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PaulTH*
Shipmate
# 320
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Posted
If four countries, ie the USA, Russia, China and India did something about their emissions, the rest of the world could relax a little. I'm not saying that we, in the UK, shouldn't play our part, far from it, but we account for 1% of the world's population. It's those big players who make or break any deals on climate change.
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Yours in Christ
Paul
Posts: 6387 | From: White Cliffs Country | Registered: May 2001
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PaulBC
Shipmate
# 13712
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Posted
This will have no support in US Congress. The whole conference has been a waste of time & enrgy.
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"He has told you O mortal,what is good;and what does the Lord require of youbut to do justice and to love kindness ,and to walk humbly with your God."Micah 6:8
Posts: 873 | From: Victoria B.C. Canada | Registered: May 2008
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Existing ideas and adaptation are not enough. We need more creative and much more dramatic things, like completely banning cars. Modest Proposal- ban cars
Would you agree to give up your car, and use alternate transport? How about it gets forced by making you pay the true costs of it? I wonder how much it would need to be to get cars gone. And replace car friendly infrastructure completely.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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PaulTH*
Shipmate
# 320
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Would you agree to give up your car, and use alternate transport? How about it gets forced by making you pay the true costs of it? I wonder how much it would need to be to get cars gone. And replace car friendly infrastructure completely
Any proposal needs to be realistic. This isn't! We already pay the true costs of motoring in car and petrol taxes. We would all support new technology and the improving of existing technology to make cars greener, hopefully completely some day. But I don't think we will return to riding everywhere on horseback and sailing the oceans on the wind. Unless civilisation breaks down and the survivors are forced to.
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Yours in Christ
Paul
Posts: 6387 | From: White Cliffs Country | Registered: May 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
What stops Bangladesh drowning? And burning us all down?
I'm watching it now, Ban Ki-moon, what utter, utter bullshit.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
We haven't got world government. So what we get has to contain aspirations, voluntary commitments, some of which may be less genuine than others. And, yes, a certain amount of hyperbole and similar bullshit.
The best hope is that co-operation may grow because there is mutual self interest in that happening. It may be now that all the world governments are in practice playing a kind of "King Canute" game i.e. major damage has already been done and some disastrous effects are already unstoppable. But that is not yet proven.
It will be interesting to see how this plays in the USA with the climate-change sceptics and vested interests who form the climate-change equivalent of "the tobacco lobby". There is a lot of money available for that group to influence presidential candidates. But in terms of belief, that now looks like them against the rest of the world. The dam may hold for a while, but it's going to cave in sooner or later. I hope it's sooner.
I see where Martin60's pessimism is coming from, but I'm not buying that yet awhile. There are few grounds for optimism but there are a few shafts of light in this deal.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Would you agree to give up your car, and use alternate transport? How about it gets forced by making you pay the true costs of it? I wonder how much it would need to be to get cars gone. And replace car friendly infrastructure completely
Any proposal needs to be realistic. This isn't! We already pay the true costs of motoring in car and petrol taxes. We would all support new technology and the improving of existing technology to make cars greener, hopefully completely some day. But I don't think we will return to riding everywhere on horseback and sailing the oceans on the wind. Unless civilisation breaks down and the survivors are forced to.
I disagree. What if there was a carbon disposal fee attached to all oil usage? The countries which refuse have duties attached to all their imports to countries which have the fee. Automobile usage gets tracked per km or mile used, and a carbon fee attached to that. Coupled with proper mass transportation, and it is realistic.
It's not a carbon tax, it's a usage fee. It also applied to electric cars because they use power from grids which generate electric from fossil fuels. We simply make the true costs of burning fossil fuels user pay. Simple.
We can also encourage reduced fossil fuel usage by passing money directly to those who reduce their usage. It already happens in a limited scale. We got government grants (i.e., money given to us) for changing double glazed windows to triple (3 panes of glass, filled with argon), going to a 98% efficient furnace, and insulation (no chimney, all heat is recovered)
We also simply completely stop any grants, tax strategies etc to fossil fuel companies. Today in many jurisdictions, fossil fuel companies deduct the expenses of searching for more oil from their corporate taxable income. We stop that too. We instead give the handouts to non-fossil fuel companies.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
We already pay the true costs of motoring in car and petrol taxes.
Really? Since no one has really quantified the true costs (how do you put a price on a Pacific island nation being submerged?) that seems incredibly unlikely.
It's been estimated that the costs of mitigation of climate change would be a few percent of GWP, which at present rates works out at at least $500 per tonne of carbon. Do the maths, and that's at least 50p per litre of petrol or diesel. The news this weekend is that several supermarkets have cut their prices to below £1 per litre. I guarantee that a lot less than half of that price is spent on mitigating the effects of climate change. To realistically be paying the true costs of burning fossil fuels there would need to be a levy of at least £1 per litre on the pump price, with the money raised spent on mitigation of the effects of climate change (building flood defences, securing clean water supplies, reforestation etc). With similar levies on coal and gas. Anyone want to put money on any government doing that? No? Yeah, I wouldn't bet on it either.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Realism.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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PaulTH*
Shipmate
# 320
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
To realistically be paying the true costs of burning fossil fuels there would need to be a levy of at least £1 per litre on the pump price, with the money raised spent on mitigation of the effects of climate change (building flood defences, securing clean water supplies, reforestation etc). With similar levies on coal and gas. Anyone want to put money on any government doing that? No? Yeah, I wouldn't bet on it either.
Of course no government in the Western world is going to commit such electoral suicide! Alan I highly respect your credentials as a scientist, but I don't know from where you get such precise figures for how much more we should be taxed in order to achieve a halt to climate change. For all we know it could still continue within the natural fluctuations in climate which the world has always had. And I stand by my point that four countries need to get themselves in order if we are to be realistic about this. Otherwise we're pissing in the ocean.
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Yours in Christ
Paul
Posts: 6387 | From: White Cliffs Country | Registered: May 2001
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Maybe it will take violence. Both from nature and ourselves killing each other over it. We either try optimistically to do something, or we pessimistically wait for the interim apocalypse. Another Black Death like catastrophe. Something that will make the current refugee crisis look like nothing.
Do it or we get 'done'.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Would you agree to give up your car, and use alternate transport? How about it gets forced by making you pay the true costs of it? I wonder how much it would need to be to get cars gone. And replace car friendly infrastructure completely
Any proposal needs to be realistic. This isn't! We already pay the true costs of motoring in car and petrol taxes. We would all support new technology and the improving of existing technology to make cars greener, hopefully completely some day. But I don't think we will return to riding everywhere on horseback and sailing the oceans on the wind. Unless civilisation breaks down and the survivors are forced to.
We don't on the other hand pay the "true cost" of civil aviation, because jet fuel for commercial purposes is free from fuel duty. I think that is an international convention, and one that is long overdue for reconsideration.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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PaulTH*
Shipmate
# 320
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Do it or we get 'done'.
This is really so true. Growing populations competing for scarcer resources can only lead to population reductions caused by famine, war and disease. The human race has learned no lessons from history and will inevitably blunder into this abyss.
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Yours in Christ
Paul
Posts: 6387 | From: White Cliffs Country | Registered: May 2001
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PaulTH*
Shipmate
# 320
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
We don't on the other hand pay the "true cost" of civil aviation, because jet fuel for commercial purposes is free from fuel duty. I think that is an international convention, and one that is long overdue for reconsideration.
Again this isn't realistic in that no country is going to agree to it. I have close family that lives near to Milan in Italy. In 1990 it used to cost me around £200 to get a flight to visit them. Now I can get it for less than £50 if I book at the right time with Easyjet or Ryanair. If the world situation gets desperate, then desperate measures will be needed. But we won't give up our comforts voluntarily. Most of us love low cost airlines. Price fixing cartels used to mean that it costed more to fly from London to Paris than it did from New York to San Francisco. Who is going to reign any of this in?
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Yours in Christ
Paul
Posts: 6387 | From: White Cliffs Country | Registered: May 2001
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PaulBC:
This will have no support in US Congress. The whole conference has been a waste of time & enrgy.
It may well not pass, but it will have some support.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
We don't on the other hand pay the "true cost" of civil aviation, because jet fuel for commercial purposes is free from fuel duty. I think that is an international convention, and one that is long overdue for reconsideration.
Again this isn't realistic in that no country is going to agree to it. I have close family that lives near to Milan in Italy. In 1990 it used to cost me around £200 to get a flight to visit them. Now I can get it for less than £50 if I book at the right time with Easyjet or Ryanair. If the world situation gets desperate, then desperate measures will be needed. But we won't give up our comforts voluntarily. Most of us love low cost airlines. Price fixing cartels used to mean that it costed more to fly from London to Paris than it did from New York to San Francisco. Who is going to reign any of this in?
We still aren't paying the full cost and you are admitting it. When will that happen? When hell freezes or the airports are underwater?
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
It will be interesting to see how this plays in the USA with the climate-change sceptics and vested interests who form the climate-change equivalent of "the tobacco lobby". There is a lot of money available for that group to influence presidential candidates. But in terms of belief, that now looks like them against the rest of the world. The dam may hold for a while, but it's going to cave in sooner or later. I hope it's sooner.
I think this is likely to be the main legacy of the agreement: it makes dealing with climate change more policitally acceptable worldwide.
Meanwhile I can't help but note (as a translator) that the deal apparently hit a last-minute snag because some passages had mistakenly been translated into English using "shall" (binding) rather than "should" (recommendation), thus proving the importance of my profession to the world ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
Yes, I saw that. Hands up all those who think the main objectors to "shall" were probably to be found in the US delegation. We're a fair way away from "binding" rather than aspirational, but maybe a step or two nearer.
"Rome wasn't built in a day" but I guess the main fear is this latest deal still constitutes "fiddling while Rome burns". I think it's better than nothing.
[ 13. December 2015, 06:54: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
Alan I highly respect your credentials as a scientist, but I don't know from where you get such precise figures for how much more we should be taxed in order to achieve a halt to climate change.
Somewhere last night in a quick calculation I did the calculation in $US and got the currency conversion wrong. Sorry about that. Here are the sums again.
The figures come from sources such as the IPCC and the Stern report which estimated costs of adaptation to climate change (rather than the costs of halting climate change) as between 0.2 and 2% of GWP. Wikipedia tells me GWP in 2014 was $77 trillion. Therefore, 1% of GWP is approximately $1 trillion. Current net carbon emissions are approaching 10 billion tonnes per year. That is the cost per tonne of carbon is $100, $0.10 per kg. Burning a litre of petrol or diesel produces 2.5kg of carbon, $0.25 or 16p (I originally converted that the wrong way, to 38p, which I then rounded up a wee bit to 50p).
So, 20p (or so) per litre of petrol/diesel. That's at one of the lower estimates of the cost of mitigation, with some estimates more than twice that. And, not including any cost to halt climate change.
I've also cheated this morning, and looked up carbon prices associated with carbon offsetting on Wikipedia. 2008 prices averaged €11.40 per tonne, which is an order of magnitude smaller than my estimate. But, that's based on the cost of a carbon sink to offset the emission rather than the mitigation of the effects of past emissions. Which, if fairly priced (and I expect it isn't) is the cost of halting further climate change.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
I don't understand the subtleties of the agreement, but find the translation point interesting. The Greens here are saying "too little, too late" - which suggests to me that it's probably not perfect, but overall reasonably ok.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Alwyn
Shipmate
# 4380
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Posted
It's great that a deal has been done.
Is it enough? What worries me is the difference between the statement that the deal aims to keep the global temperature rise "well below" 2 degrees and the graphic in this BBC news story which seems to suggest that the temperature rise by 2100 "based on Paris pledges" will be 2.7 degrees.
That doesn't look good. It's as if the rebel alliance have responded to the threat of the Death Star by building one prototype X-wing fighter, with plans to construct a squadron of fighters over the next 50 years.
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Post hoc, ergo propter hoc
Posts: 849 | From: UK | Registered: Apr 2003
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itsarumdo
Shipmate
# 18174
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Posted
It's more that Han Solo has decided to first make a bit more money on smuggling and has locked princess Leia in a storage locker pending the next deal or two. Well, at least she's on board.
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
This deal is being taken more seriously than the last one as the effects of climate change become ever more apparent.
No real push to stop ad-lib fossil fuel based transport. But then so long as places like china and India are pushing out coal smoke there's not much point.
Unlike the Kyoto non agreement, as least this time we've actually pulled our head out of the sand. And like the ostrich, legging it may well be the next option.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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PaulTH*
Shipmate
# 320
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
So, 20p (or so) per litre of petrol/diesel. That's at one of the lower estimates of the cost of mitigation, with some estimates more than twice that. And, not including any cost to halt climate change.
It's perfectly reasonable to expect the motorist to pay the cost of mitigation in higher taxes, but in the UK we already pay 60% of the cost of fuel in tax. If governments world wide were committed to ear marking fuel taxes for mitigation and environmental damage, I doubt if many would disagree. What's more likely is that they would charge us extra tax and still keep our money as they do now. When environmental issues just translate as more tax, without anyone explaining how the tax will be spent, that's when I want a proper explanation. We already pay enough tax on our fuel, and it's up to the government to ensure that they spend it wisely on the environment.
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Yours in Christ
Paul
Posts: 6387 | From: White Cliffs Country | Registered: May 2001
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itsarumdo
Shipmate
# 18174
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Posted
The equation is complicated
Here in the UK we have cheap food (subsidised, particularly considering agricultural emissions account for about 30% of greenhouse gases). Which essentially allows land prices to go up - because the low cost of food allows rents to be high. A system where land is owned and seen as a source of profit - rather than being in stewardship - is a big part of the problem - nature as commodity rather than as a shared gift. It's a fundamentally flawed mindset, that is the main reason we are in this mess in the first place. It is also associated with a rather flawed monetary system that is based on debt at a structural level but which criminalises debt at an individual level. I don't see any of those being equalised for some time - so lets try a less radical option....
Stop all artificial ammonia production, and go back to use of urine (!) OK - too much again? lets try another
If car fuel prices go up, then what happens to commercial and agricultural diesel? e.g. What happens to the current trend to buy and sell everything over the internet as small and rapidly delivered packages (that require a diesel-hungry transport infrastructure)? If transport overheads are properly priced according to emmissions, then we will have to drop back to far more local economies, with bigger local (and less regional/national) warehouse storage. Sea transport should also figure high for the UK - it is far more fuel efficient, but is obviously slower an drequires more manhandling when moving from one transport mode to another. Putting that into simple words, expect anything transported to be more expensive, and to take longer to be transported. If the public continue to demand (i.e. big companies continue to offer) faster and faster and smaller and smaller unit small package delivery, then there is no way to contain commercial vehicle emissions. That would be a good start.
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
All electricity in the North - the Tropic of Cancer - to be generated by renewables by 2030.
Global energy security, no export of Salafism. No need for 'foreign policy'.
Below by 2050.
All transport to be electrically powered similarly. Oooh! The end of aviation.
No animal farming (with the added benefit of no antibiotic food chain - which may be moot in 5 years).
No synthetic fertilizer.
Bangladesh doesn't drown and doesn't burn us all down.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
I agree with James Hansen - the Paris agreement is not really worth anything, and the likelihood is that it'll have almost no effect.
The fact is that the biggest emitters are the EU, North America and Australia; India and China.
The rest emit so little as to be basically irrelevant to this conversation.
Of course, the difference between I and C and the West is that both of the former are intent on developing their economies to lift large parts of their population out of poverty.
But the paradox is that I and C will not invest themselves in developing a more efficient and carbon conscious economy because a) there is a huge capital cost implication compared to just continuing to use carbon intensive power generation and b) they can't see why they should have to, given they didn't cause the problems.
But there is no way that the EU, NA and Australia are going to substantially invest in India and China - if only because this would make their main competitors more efficient (with a knock-on effect on their own competitiveness), plus the potential loss of power over the Middle East carbon economies.
The EU, NA and Australia might seek to look good by investing in the least developed and small island states (who are in no sense competitors) - who are projected to be most effected by climate change but these cause the least impact so this will make no difference at all to overall emissions.
So then the EU, NA and Australia has a choice - either they voluntarily take the heavy lifting on carbon reduction for everyone, which will inevitably lead to a very major impact on lifestyles in the short term, if not the much longer term (which will be a hard sell if China and India are doing very little) or we all exchange increasingly angry words whilst the world warms over the next 50 years.
Given than nobody wants to believe in the West that they, personally, need to reduce their emissions by 90% and take the hit on their over-consumptive lifestyles, it's never going to happen. We're heading towards the cliff, we know what we need to do to change direction, but nobody wants to actually do it.
It is like a slow-motion Tragedy of the Commons scenario mixed in with a dose of the Prisoner's dilemma.
[ 14. December 2015, 10:47: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
It is like a slow-motion Tragedy of the Commons scenario mixed in with a dose of the Prisoner's dilemma.
There is, or at best certainly could be, a good deal of truth in that. The global political and economic conditions of the world's main carbon emission countries probably do mitigate against anything other than an aspirational approach.
Here's John Kerry's response, which acknowledges that.
Reality bites, of course. The five year reviews at least allow for that to happen.
John Kerry voiced my main short term aspiration here.
quote:
“I think, frankly, a lot of members of Congress are on the wrong side of history,” he told the ABC.
“And I don’t believe you can be elected president of the United States if you don’t understand climate change or you’re not committed to this kind of a plan.
“Obviously, if a Republican were elected, they have the ability, by executive order, to undo things … but that’s why I don’t believe the American people – who predominantly do believe in what is happening with climate change – I don’t think they’re going to accept as a genuine leader someone who doesn’t understand the science of climate change and isn’t willing to do something about it.”
For the globe's sake, that had better be more than just a pious hope.
I agree with Hansen that, on climate change at least, the Chinese government is showing promising signs of being more rational and more purposeful in combating the risks. Maybe others will follow their lead?
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
How many will die if we don't figure it out?
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
That's per capita. Oz is 18th by total.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Martin60: All transport to be electrically powered similarly. Oooh! The end of aviation.
I'm looking forward to my Zeppelin flight.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
That's per capita. Oz is 18th by total.
Yes, sorry, my mistake. I also forgot about Russia and Japan - but the substantive point is still the same.
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PaulBC:
This will have no support in US Congress. The whole conference has been a waste of time & enrgy.
Interestingly the agreement seems to have been deliberately crafted in order to avoid (as much as possible) the dysfunctional aspects of the U.S. legislature.
quote:
That hybrid legal structure was explicitly designed in response to the political reality in the United States. A deal that would have assigned legal requirements for countries to cut emissions at specific levels would need to go before the United States Senate for ratification. That language would have been dead on arrival in the Republican-controlled Senate, where many members question the established science of human-caused climate change, and still more wish to thwart Mr. Obama’s climate change agenda.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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itsarumdo
Shipmate
# 18174
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Posted
Interesting post by Charles Eisenstein ... on his blog pages
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
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Tukai
Shipmate
# 12960
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Posted
As someone who was actively involved in the negotiations in the 1990s that led to the original UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and to the Kyoto Protocol to that convention, I am heartened not only by the formal outcomes of the Paris conference but even more so by the informal outcomes.
I refer in particular to the radical shift in attitudes by big business to climate change since those "olden days". In short, investors are running ahead of governments.
For example a report on The Conversation notes that "It’s not that investors and chief executives have had an ethical epiphany about climate change; it’s just that they can see where the world is headed, and it makes sense to be part of it rather than being stuck in the economy of the 20th century. ".
In a side-event in Paris hundreds of senior business people, who control literally trillions of dollars in investment, paid attention as the Governor of the Bank of England [no less!] warned of rising risks to such investors from climate change and action to avert it. These include not only direct risks due to massive insurance payouts after climate disasters, but also liability risks for directors should corporations be sued for neglecting their fiduciary duty to allow for an abrupt transition to a low-energy economy.
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A government that panders to the worst instincts of its people degrades the whole country for years to come.
Posts: 594 | From: Oz | Registered: Sep 2007
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