I don't mean this in bad way but these COP conferences really don't make sense.
Each time we have the leaders on every country saying that this time for real they are going to stick with the plan and lower their emissions. Yet according to this link: https://climateactiontracker.org/publications/the-climate-cr... The progress on the already agreed targets has been lacking.
It's like having a meeting about a project whose deadline was 3 weeks ago and having your team tell you that the new deadline 2 days from now will for sure be met this time.
Countries keep agreeing to new targets that are even more ambitious than the previous unmet targets. It's not as if just publishing the new targets will make the old targets much more achievable.
There's pressure from your peers to meet deadlines you have agreed upon, though some countries have the excuse that because the party in Government changes every 4 years, they didn't really agree to anything :/
What would you suggest that they should do instead of setting goals?
> There's pressure from your peers to meet deadlines you have agreed upon
That is my point exactly, most countries have agreed to targets and deadlines that they have not met either through inaction or something else entirely.
So what is the point of the new targets if the old targets have not been met yet?
> What would you suggest that they should do instead of setting goals?
How about meeting the previous targets before setting new ones? Otherwise you just loose credibility.
> though some countries have the excuse that because the party in Government changes every 4 years, they didn't really agree to anything :/
I mean the agreement is between the countries and not ruling regimes/parties. I would find it hard to assume that a diplomat will say we didn't agree on anything, this was previous government to be very appealing argument. Although there are details like in the US getting back on their pledges and who can say something. But that's more of power dynamics and not actual argument. Otherwise these countries engaged in decades long agreements with many parties (even international agreements) without problems.
This whole charade is so ill conceived. Honestly, the top 20 developed nations are literally THE problem. It's a demand side problem not a supply side one. We need to stop buying container loads of virtually disposable electronics from China every week, stop driving to the shops, stop running energy intensive appliances, you get the drift. Of course if people actually did this it would tank our developed economies.
If there was a better and cheaper option to replace fossil fuels for transportation and energy, the transition would naturally happen. Why would anyone buy a gas car if electric was better and cheaper in every way? Maybe a few petrolhead enthusiasts but everyone would switch if it was cheaper and better and the infrastructure was in place.
But instead of doing the work (infrastructure) and making the technology better and cheaper, a strategy of carrots and sticks was employed ($ incentives and taxation) that haven’t progressed the technology.
The reason we burn gas in our cars is because it was better and cheaper than the previous fuels.
Maybe because it's not that simple? A new technology and a new infrastructure will be more expensive initially, until it reaches a critical mass. So, to reach that critical mass you need early adopters who take the hit, and to help sweeten the hit, you give them money under the form of incentives to buy the new EV or create the charging infrastructure. That's one of the main duties of a welfare state.
I wish they (COP crowd) would talk about TFR and do rollouts under worst case scenario.
Low TFR countries should continue to shrink. But high TFR countries are likely to get less poor. They are the problem. If people are truly fungible like they say, migrating low consumption people to high consumption states despite local resistance is the worst idea ever. I wish they would focus on these points.
200 countries pledged $300 billion per year in total - not very much since climate change disasters are already costing tens of billions a year and many human lives in the US alone.
I find it baffling that, for instance, India, one the most polluted and polluting country in the planet on several metrics, is one of the recipient of the money.
People in countries that go the extra mile to keep the environment as clean as possible and that already cleanup after others, are being extorted money to give to a country that's responsible, for instance, for the most plastic being poured into the ocean after China. [1]
This is a total inversion of principles and a reinforcement of negative behavior. These countries should be suffering penalties, not getting rewards.
Those who benefited from the carbon emissions at the cost of others on a per capita basis need to take accountability of funneling the accrued capital to those who are suffering because of it.
If the argument is that we should now pay up for our ancestors not having the foresight to understand that industrializing during the 19th and early 20th century was going to have a negative impact on the environment, then I also expect other people to pay up for their ancestors during the 19th, early 20th, and even late 20th century not understanding that having a lot of children would have a negative impact on the environment.
I don't know why the lens you view this through is retributional, us vs them, or about taxing success of developed nations or rewarding people of a particular geography. Population growth is not an independent variable, it depends on availability of arable land, resources, education, urbanization, regulating structures/incidents. All human populations tend to have similar trends based on the above. Just because someone draws a line on the map around a lot of arable land doesn't mean it is overpopulated.
Climate change is going to effect every one even if those in developing nations suffer disproportionately. The quicker we transition our energy architecture away from non-renewables the better off everyone is. Those with surplus capital have the power to make this happen faster by helping those without. The alternative is choosing to suffer by delaying this with an us vs them narrative.
Considering that the average person in these so called developed countries pollute and consume far more than the average person in India and China, I don't see your point.
Well, one of the points is trying to figure out how that constantly used "per capita" argument ever solves environmental problems.
Exactly why should we reward India when it comes to pollution just because they have a lot of people? What does that do for the environment and for solving the climate crisis?
Should the West start doing their part when it comes to save the environment by having a lot more children?
So what do you want India to do? Have de-population programs? Split into 1000 smaller countries so that each country is well below the average developed country in raw environmental impact?
It's more fair to use a per capita metric rather than per country. Not only does the average person in developed countries consume far more, they also use much more goods manufactured from places like India and China. So they're just outsourcing their environmental impact.
> they also use much more goods manufactured from places like India and China
since the argument seems to be that rich countries are using China and India to produce the co2, could these two countries simply stop making the tat that we import from them? If that will tank their economy, then wouldn't us stopping the imports of tat also tank their economy?
The very first thing to do, is to not take money from people on developed countries to give to India. A wealth transfer should only go to developing countries that are improving their environmental impact, never to countries like India that are constantly doing worst.
Then, to look at CO2 emissions per land area. Which should be the fairest way of measuring the countries that are actually doing good, instead of rewarding high birthrates that only make the environmental problem worst.
This sounds like someone standing on a sinking ship asking why everyone onboard needs to be given their share of available tools to help plug the leaks, when those tools could be used to create surplus for those having tools.
> I find it baffling that, for instance, India, one the most polluted and polluting country in the planet on several metrics, is one of the recipient of the money.
The Indian government is doing a lot, and there have been serious reductions in pollution. They have also pivoted massively into renewable energy and have some of the biggest solar farms in the world which is more directly applicable to climate change. There are nine new nuclear reactors currently slated to be completed by 2027. It’s just such a large country with so many people without basic civic sense that it’s going to take a long time to make changes. On the bright side, it’s a very community based system as opposed to an individualistic one like the West so when those changes are eventually picked up, the cultural adherence is going to be very high.
The entire point is that developed nations went through their phase of intense pollution, came out the other side, and are now rich because of that history. Developing nations can't afford the luxury of clean industries, because they can barely afford the dirty ones!
The money is aimed at getting them "over the hump" in the least polluting manner possible.
It's like... helping up others after you've climbed the wall instead of pulling up the ladder behind you and blaming them for being lower than you.
Every 1$ that's extorted from the citizens of developed nations to give to most of the developing nations (India one of them), is going to build the single most productive industry regardless of how dirty it is. Giving money to these nations, only increases the pollution even more.
The system is totally inverted to the level of insanity. We should be rewarding developing nations that are decreasing their pollution levels, not rewarding developing nations that are polluting even more.
Nobody is "rewarding" polluting countries. The idea is to give poor nations money so that they can build clean energy infrastructure, as well as handle the damage already caused by climate change, for which the developed countries have much responsibility.
It seems like they are. Look at how migration works too. For some reason, moving humans from low CO2 regimes to high CO2 regimes is seen as "good" or "human rights" but also everyone must cut CO2. It's incoherent actions all around.
TFR is the big thing that is ignored. Look at 50-100 years out. Low TFR stable CO2 countries will solve themselves. One high TFR country that becomes less poor (produces more CO2) dominates future CO2 paths.
I don't mean this in bad way but these COP conferences really don't make sense.
Each time we have the leaders on every country saying that this time for real they are going to stick with the plan and lower their emissions. Yet according to this link: https://climateactiontracker.org/publications/the-climate-cr... The progress on the already agreed targets has been lacking.
It's like having a meeting about a project whose deadline was 3 weeks ago and having your team tell you that the new deadline 2 days from now will for sure be met this time.
Countries keep agreeing to new targets that are even more ambitious than the previous unmet targets. It's not as if just publishing the new targets will make the old targets much more achievable.
Make it make sense.
There's pressure from your peers to meet deadlines you have agreed upon, though some countries have the excuse that because the party in Government changes every 4 years, they didn't really agree to anything :/
What would you suggest that they should do instead of setting goals?
> There's pressure from your peers to meet deadlines you have agreed upon
That is my point exactly, most countries have agreed to targets and deadlines that they have not met either through inaction or something else entirely.
So what is the point of the new targets if the old targets have not been met yet?
> What would you suggest that they should do instead of setting goals?
How about meeting the previous targets before setting new ones? Otherwise you just loose credibility.
> though some countries have the excuse that because the party in Government changes every 4 years, they didn't really agree to anything :/
I mean the agreement is between the countries and not ruling regimes/parties. I would find it hard to assume that a diplomat will say we didn't agree on anything, this was previous government to be very appealing argument. Although there are details like in the US getting back on their pledges and who can say something. But that's more of power dynamics and not actual argument. Otherwise these countries engaged in decades long agreements with many parties (even international agreements) without problems.
They go there to make fossil fuel deals, environmental protection is just the fake messaging for the proletariat.
This whole charade is so ill conceived. Honestly, the top 20 developed nations are literally THE problem. It's a demand side problem not a supply side one. We need to stop buying container loads of virtually disposable electronics from China every week, stop driving to the shops, stop running energy intensive appliances, you get the drift. Of course if people actually did this it would tank our developed economies.
If there was a better and cheaper option to replace fossil fuels for transportation and energy, the transition would naturally happen. Why would anyone buy a gas car if electric was better and cheaper in every way? Maybe a few petrolhead enthusiasts but everyone would switch if it was cheaper and better and the infrastructure was in place.
But instead of doing the work (infrastructure) and making the technology better and cheaper, a strategy of carrots and sticks was employed ($ incentives and taxation) that haven’t progressed the technology.
The reason we burn gas in our cars is because it was better and cheaper than the previous fuels.
Maybe because it's not that simple? A new technology and a new infrastructure will be more expensive initially, until it reaches a critical mass. So, to reach that critical mass you need early adopters who take the hit, and to help sweeten the hit, you give them money under the form of incentives to buy the new EV or create the charging infrastructure. That's one of the main duties of a welfare state.
I wish they (COP crowd) would talk about TFR and do rollouts under worst case scenario.
Low TFR countries should continue to shrink. But high TFR countries are likely to get less poor. They are the problem. If people are truly fungible like they say, migrating low consumption people to high consumption states despite local resistance is the worst idea ever. I wish they would focus on these points.
> I wish they (COP crowd) would talk about TFR and do rollouts under worst case scenario.
I wish you had defined TFR so we can understand if you are attacking poor countries or defending the riches
Less than half the US military budget
" $300 billion annually by 2035" to me 300 sounds pretty good. But that's a long time
200 countries pledged $300 billion per year in total - not very much since climate change disasters are already costing tens of billions a year and many human lives in the US alone.
Also this target is 11 years away.
Definitely disappointing.
Edit: sorry I misread, never mind, thanks.
I think it says 300B /by/ 2035 per year
I find it baffling that, for instance, India, one the most polluted and polluting country in the planet on several metrics, is one of the recipient of the money.
People in countries that go the extra mile to keep the environment as clean as possible and that already cleanup after others, are being extorted money to give to a country that's responsible, for instance, for the most plastic being poured into the ocean after China. [1]
This is a total inversion of principles and a reinforcement of negative behavior. These countries should be suffering penalties, not getting rewards.
[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stemming-the-plas...
Those who benefited from the carbon emissions at the cost of others on a per capita basis need to take accountability of funneling the accrued capital to those who are suffering because of it.
https://ourworldindata.org/contributed-most-global-co2
If the argument is that we should now pay up for our ancestors not having the foresight to understand that industrializing during the 19th and early 20th century was going to have a negative impact on the environment, then I also expect other people to pay up for their ancestors during the 19th, early 20th, and even late 20th century not understanding that having a lot of children would have a negative impact on the environment.
I don't know why the lens you view this through is retributional, us vs them, or about taxing success of developed nations or rewarding people of a particular geography. Population growth is not an independent variable, it depends on availability of arable land, resources, education, urbanization, regulating structures/incidents. All human populations tend to have similar trends based on the above. Just because someone draws a line on the map around a lot of arable land doesn't mean it is overpopulated.
Climate change is going to effect every one even if those in developing nations suffer disproportionately. The quicker we transition our energy architecture away from non-renewables the better off everyone is. Those with surplus capital have the power to make this happen faster by helping those without. The alternative is choosing to suffer by delaying this with an us vs them narrative.
Considering that the average person in these so called developed countries pollute and consume far more than the average person in India and China, I don't see your point.
Well, one of the points is trying to figure out how that constantly used "per capita" argument ever solves environmental problems.
Exactly why should we reward India when it comes to pollution just because they have a lot of people? What does that do for the environment and for solving the climate crisis?
Should the West start doing their part when it comes to save the environment by having a lot more children?
So what do you want India to do? Have de-population programs? Split into 1000 smaller countries so that each country is well below the average developed country in raw environmental impact?
It's more fair to use a per capita metric rather than per country. Not only does the average person in developed countries consume far more, they also use much more goods manufactured from places like India and China. So they're just outsourcing their environmental impact.
> they also use much more goods manufactured from places like India and China
since the argument seems to be that rich countries are using China and India to produce the co2, could these two countries simply stop making the tat that we import from them? If that will tank their economy, then wouldn't us stopping the imports of tat also tank their economy?
The very first thing to do, is to not take money from people on developed countries to give to India. A wealth transfer should only go to developing countries that are improving their environmental impact, never to countries like India that are constantly doing worst.
Then, to look at CO2 emissions per land area. Which should be the fairest way of measuring the countries that are actually doing good, instead of rewarding high birthrates that only make the environmental problem worst.
This sounds like someone standing on a sinking ship asking why everyone onboard needs to be given their share of available tools to help plug the leaks, when those tools could be used to create surplus for those having tools.
> I find it baffling that, for instance, India, one the most polluted and polluting country in the planet on several metrics, is one of the recipient of the money.
It's for tackling climate change, not pollution.
Why is it baffling at all? Indians can’t spend as much money as say someone in the US. Shouldn’t the money go where it’s the most beneficial?
The Indian government is doing a lot, and there have been serious reductions in pollution. They have also pivoted massively into renewable energy and have some of the biggest solar farms in the world which is more directly applicable to climate change. There are nine new nuclear reactors currently slated to be completed by 2027. It’s just such a large country with so many people without basic civic sense that it’s going to take a long time to make changes. On the bright side, it’s a very community based system as opposed to an individualistic one like the West so when those changes are eventually picked up, the cultural adherence is going to be very high.
The entire point is that developed nations went through their phase of intense pollution, came out the other side, and are now rich because of that history. Developing nations can't afford the luxury of clean industries, because they can barely afford the dirty ones!
The money is aimed at getting them "over the hump" in the least polluting manner possible.
It's like... helping up others after you've climbed the wall instead of pulling up the ladder behind you and blaming them for being lower than you.
Every 1$ that's extorted from the citizens of developed nations to give to most of the developing nations (India one of them), is going to build the single most productive industry regardless of how dirty it is. Giving money to these nations, only increases the pollution even more.
The system is totally inverted to the level of insanity. We should be rewarding developing nations that are decreasing their pollution levels, not rewarding developing nations that are polluting even more.
Nobody is "rewarding" polluting countries. The idea is to give poor nations money so that they can build clean energy infrastructure, as well as handle the damage already caused by climate change, for which the developed countries have much responsibility.
It seems like they are. Look at how migration works too. For some reason, moving humans from low CO2 regimes to high CO2 regimes is seen as "good" or "human rights" but also everyone must cut CO2. It's incoherent actions all around.
TFR is the big thing that is ignored. Look at 50-100 years out. Low TFR stable CO2 countries will solve themselves. One high TFR country that becomes less poor (produces more CO2) dominates future CO2 paths.