Every nation commits to actions on climate change. Now, Trump is withdrawing from Paris climate agreement. The agreement was signed in 2016 (Nov), which means the US can't withdraw for 3 years since the agreement was signed. I do not think this will happen until 2020. What is the real idea behind the withdrawal? Soon, the US will turn from the world climate leader to a world climate deadbeat.
I personally find the politics of climate change uninteresting so I actually don't know a lot about this specific topic. But, it didn't go unnoticed by me that even the oil companies (at least some of them) don't want us to pull out of the Paris climate agreement.
Blind politics for the wealthy, with junk science logic, akin to the big tobacco science of the '60s.
The U.S. never formally signed it. President Obama did not even attempt to have it signed as a treaty by the Senate, hence, it was just theater, not law or a treaty.
Somewhat irrelevant, because the Boehner Congress and McConnell Senate opposed everything the Obama did, as they would have with the Paris Accord. Bottom line - majorities in 49 of the 50 States approve of the Paris Accord, so Obama represented the will of the people. Trump is going against the will of the people. He has a Republican House and Senate, and still did not seek approval. Why - because his own Party wouldn't have supported this wreckless act.
Doesn't matter. The truth is that Obama didn't have political support, so he just signed a worthless piece of paper without the backing of the legislative branch. He knew that the next Republican President would immediately back out of it. In addition, since he didn't ask the Senate, there was no U.S. Senate input into the agreement, which is even more disastrous. Basically speaking, Obama was a political failure after his first two years, and after that point pretty much resorted to political theater rather than any real attempt to change things.
It was never ratified so isn't a Treaty, we can withdraw anytime we wish, that is in the US Constitution. And how are they going to force the USA to do anything unless we want to? As for the accord its stupid unless the worlds nations agree to stop using fossil fuels at a far lower level than now within a decade and crash R&D alternatives at a high level of funding its pointless. And further many nations like China can do what they want as a government the various right to use the land and such is held by the government. In the USA try to build big green energy parks, nuclear power plants our best backup source of clean power and things like desalination plants and water storage sites without hitting massive resistance from multiple fronts and tons of red tape and many years approval. Could we have done the largest dam system in the world like the Chinese did in the USA in so short a time and with marginal problems moving people? NO. Our best choice is adaption to climate change by not making living in likely flooding zones pleasant and technology to grow food in drier and in other areas wetter conditions. In a century the tech for Green Energy will likely be cheap enough and good enough to start being widely used even by low income people.
Yes, but you're speaking in terms of politics over the will of the American people - a majority 49 of the 50 states. But then, you're also defending a president with a 35% approval rating after 6 months, so I guess it's expected.
I'm not defending Trump at all. I'm blaming Obama. I didn't vote for Trump, and am still #NeverTrump. Obama was almost as incompetent at the job of President as is Trump. That's why I fear for this country. We can't afford 12 years of incompetent leadership, following years of semi-competent leadership.
My point was try any big noisy or animal impacting project for Green Power in THE USA with all the red tape and special interest groups fighting the hell out of them, China can pull such off because they can order people out and use force if needed but they usually have no major issues. Simple question can we cut fossil fuel use in say twenty years enough to matter without drastic actions the major government like the USA won't do.
I disagree that hydro has been tapped to it's max potential. Pumped water storage is used in the US, and countries all over the world, to provide peak demand. This can also be used as a storage strategy with renewables. In addition it can utilize existing hydroelectric infrastructure, and has an 85% efficiency. And it is a proven technology. https://energy.gov/eere/water/pumped-storage-hydropower In addition to traditional hydropower, pumped-storage hydropower (PSH)—A type of hydropower that works like a battery, pumping water from a lower reservoir to an upper reservoir for storage and later generation—is an important piece of DOE's renewable energy portfolio because it acts as a utility-scale grid storage technology. DOE's Water Power Program plays a supportive role in demonstrating the benefits of PSH and its role in our nation's clean energy portfolio. As a renewable form of energy storage, PSH facilitates grid stabilization allowing a high penetration of variable renewables such as wind and solar into existing electrical grids.
You are simply wrong in that the US has never been a climate leader and its withdrawal will not turn it into a climate deadbeat. Assuming the rest of the world honors their commitments, which they won't, Paris just would have had us paying the bills for other nations. Market-based forces will continue to lead to US declines in CO2 emissions simply because natural gas is so abundant and cheap compared to dirtier fuels. We will continue to head in the right direction because of lowering costs. China and India won't because 1) they never honor them 1) they won't have the US paying any of their bills and 3) at least China already understates their emissions by an amount close to total US emissions as is.
China and India are investing heavily into renewables. They are becoming world leaders. http://money.cnn.com/2017/07/18/technology/china-us-clean-energy-solar-farm/index.html More than 2.5 million people work in the solar power sector alone in China, compared with 260,000 people in the U.S., according to the most recent annual report from the International Renewable Energy Agency. While President Trump promises to put American coal miners back to work, China is moving in the opposite direction. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/21/india-renewable-energy-paris-climate-summit-target The Indian government has forecast that it will exceed the renewable energy targets set in Paris last year by nearly half and three years ahead of schedule. A draft 10-year energy blueprint published this week predicts that 57% of India’s total electricity capacity will come from non-fossil fuel sources by 2027. The Paris climate accord target was 40% by 2030.
I have gone ten rounds with someone else on this and am not going back to find the links again. India pledges a lot of things but India's state run utility cannot even borrow money and India's pledge involves the government doing nothing as it is based on their expectation others will convert to renewables on their own for the same reason the US will--because as the prices become cheaper, people will try it out. The US federal government doesn't provide our energy. Over 3,000 companies with somewhere close to a couple thousand producers supply our energy. These are or not government owned companies and there is nothing Trump can do about making them use solar energy. In the mean time, Trump can say whatever he wants to coal miners, but at the end of the day, natural gas is now cheaper than coal so the market will mover to natural gas for new energy production. As they do, our energy related co2 output will fall because of the market dynamic. China China China's CO2 output is officially about 150% of the US and nobody believes their numbers are accurately reported by the government. I have seen some estimates that it is somewhere closer to 250% of the US's. 2.5 million people working in solar won't make a dent in their pollution problem.
Alternative energy is extremely cheap. My solar system, before tax credits cost $35,000, with a guaranteed lifespan of 30 years. My energy usage, at the current rate of my install, not accounting for inflation or other price increases, would have ran $108,000 over 30 years.
My link on India was about pledges, however they already have a large renewable portfolio. As such, I believe they are on track to meet their pledges. http://www.makeinindia.com/sector/renewable-energy/ India has the fifth largest power generation portfolio in the world and its current renewable energy contribution stands at 44.812 GW which includes 27.441 GW of Wind power and 8.062 GW of Solar power installed capacity in the country. (As on 31.07.2016). And as for China, yes they have pollution and a large CO2 footprint. But they are very rapidly correcting this.
