Maybe the government can set up something like the FCC, the organisation that regulates America’s airwaves. The FCC put out bands of the airwaves up for auction to telecom and TV companies so maybe the new body could auction off chunks of the actual air, maybe on a state by state basis, and corporations can bid for the air rights. Then they can charge a modest fee to people in the state for keeping the air breathable.
What you said was: “I don’t see the point in looking at per capita numbers. It’s total pollution that matters and total potential pollution in the future.”
Such a philosophy conveniently makes the most populous country look as bad or even worse than the US.
Really what we should be looking at is emissions per head versus standard of living.
Sweden has per capita emissions barely higher than China’s. So clearly it’s possible for the Chinese standard of living to improve beyond all recognition and yet not emit considerably more CO2 than they do now.
Conversely, if they follow the US’ path, and 1.3 billion people have their own SUV and supersize everything…the planet’s gangfucked.
I can’t find a conference where the US was genuinely keen to implement targets but “the Asians” weren’t.
I think there is resistance on both sides. Depicting it, as you did, as the West all agreeing on targets, but China and India refusing, is fantasy.
(Substitute the US for India and the statement would be far more accurate)
Look, the US pollutes a lot and isn’t serious about cutting emissions. China now pollutes even more with absolutely vast potential to massively increase emissions. Same with India as far as the massive increase goes.
*L’AQUILA, Italy — The world’s biggest developing nations, led by China and India, refused Wednesday to commit to specific goals for slashing heat-trapping gases by 2050, undercutting the drive to build a global consensus by the end of this year to reverse the threat of climate change.
As President Obama arrived for three days of talks with other leaders of the Group of 8 nations, negotiators for 17 leading polluters abandoned targets in a draft agreement for the meetings here. But negotiators embraced a goal of preventing temperatures from rising more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, and developing nations agreed to make “meaningful” if unspecified reductions in emissions.
[…]
But the impasse over the 2050 targets demonstrated again the most vexing problem in reaching a consensus on climate change: the longstanding divisions between developed countries like the United States, Europe and Japan on one side, and developing nations like China, India, Brazil and Mexico on the other.
While the richest countries have produced the bulk of the pollution blamed for climate change, developing countries are producing increasing volumes of gases. But developing countries say their climb out of poverty should not be halted to fix damage done by industrial countries.
As various sides tried to draft an agreement to sign Thursday, those tensions scuttled the specific goals sought by the United States and Europe. The proposed agreement called for worldwide emissions to be cut 50 percent by 2050, with industrial countries cutting theirs by 80 percent. But emerging powers refused to agree because they wanted industrial countries to commit to midterm goals in the next decade and to follow through on promises of financial and technological help for poorer nations.*
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/09/world/europe/09prexy.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
China finds it ludicrous that anyone would try to argue with a straight face that pollution should be on a per country rather than a per capita basis. Factor in that the US “exports” pollution to China. Not only is China the factory of the world (which means pollution that previously was emitted by the US is not emitted by China) but a metric shitload of crap is sent to China for “recycling”. For example, insulated copper cables were (still?) sent to China, where the insulation would just be burned off and then the copper melted down.
It would behoove the West to work out a win-win situation with China and India, instead of demanding that the emerging economies not do the exact same thing as the west did to modernize.
To the OP, the only thing that gives me hope is that the Chinese leadership can’t escape the pollution. As a mover and shaker power broker in Zhongnanhai (location of the national head of government in Beijing), you can avoid traffic, eat uncontaminated foods, be isolated from the unwashed masses, and generally live an isolated life BUT you can’t escape the horrendous pollution or dust storms.
Once again, I feel it is disingenuous to ignore population and claim that China is now worse than the US.
In terms of the climate talks, what you’ve linked is a piece from the NY Times on the 2009 G8 summit, which was simply aimed at setting the agenda for the UN Climate talks which were to happen later in the year in Copenhagen.
No specific targets were agreed on at the Copenhagen conference, but as we see here, some countries, such as China and India, had pledged to make a significant cut to their emissions, if a binding agreement had been reached. Other countries, like the US and Canada had targets that were basically the status quo.
Yep, and I will have to point out here what I mentioned in other threads, if China and India do not become active in controlling their pollution, the increased suffering of the people will lead to unrest, in the case of China it is likely to throw the CP in China into the dust bin.
If they are smart, they should realize soon that changing to low emission ways is also for their benefit, although I think that the exchange of technology should be increased so all nations are more effective with the transformation.
What matters in all this is the amount of shit getting pumped into the atmosphere. That’s the problem the world faces. So really it doesn’t matter how many people there are in a country producing the shit, it’s how much shit a country produces and especially what kind of potential shit production the country has over the next few decades.
Nitpick: At Copenhagen, the US pledged a 17% reduction from 2005 levels, and it is (almost) on target to meet that number.