Here we go again.
I would ask you to read the piece, China Steps Forward on Climate Change with one of my most often quoted phrases in mind (“you’re telling me what you need, and I’m telling you what you’ve got”).
After reviewing some of China’s steps to improve energy efficiency, he says:
These policies show how much progress can be made on meeting climate goals even without a binding agreement on an emissions cap. In California, the Air Resources Board has estimated that over 80% of the emissions reductions needed to reach the ambitious 2020 goal established by AB32 will be achieved by financial incentives and regulation related to energy and location efficiency, and only the residual achieved by cap-and-trade. (But don’t forget that a key reason the incentives and regulations are as ambitious as they are is the recognized necessity of meeting the statewide emissions target.)
In China, binding emissions limits, even in the short term, would not make sense, because no one can accurately forecast the country’s level of economic development in 2020 (much less 2050). Setting a goal that is too loose would generate a lot of “hot air”: where real emissions that are a lot lower than the target and consequently wasteful tradeoffs are allowed or even encouraged. But setting a goal that is too tight would force China to make cuts that go beyond those achievable by a clean energy investment strategy. Such cuts would reinforce the erroneous perception that meeting critical development goals such as poverty alleviation is in tension with cutting pollution.
In fact, to tackle climate change and also to maintain its world-leading pace of economic development, China must rapidly transition to a cleaner development path through initiatives in areas such as efficiency and renewable energy. Achieving this path will require strong commitments from government and the private sector. Encouragingly, I am seeing more and more such commitments.
Does anyone here think that the Earth System gives a rat’s ass what does or does not make sense for the development of China or any other country? How hard is it for people to understand the notion of a global carbon budget, and that we’re in a cap-and-no-trade situation? Whether any future ton of CO2 is emitted by China or India or the US or any other country you care to name, and for whatever purpose you care to cite, is utterly irrelevant.
If we keep engaging in this kind of magical thinking, where we believe that we can somehow excuse some emissions, like the tired old one-liner about there being no calories in hollow chocolate, then we’re merely hastening the day when the only climate change deniers left are a handful of certifiably insane individuals.
