How the US Cut Climate-Changing Emissions While Its Economy More Than Doubled (theconversation.com) 120
alternative_right shares a report from The Conversation: Countries around the world have been discussing the need to rein in climate change for three decades, yet global greenhouse gas emissions -- and global temperatures with them -- keep rising. When it seems like we're getting nowhere, it's useful to step back and examine the progress that has been made. Let's take a look at the United States, historically the world's largest greenhouse gas emitter. Over those three decades, the U.S. population soared by 28% and the economy, as measured by gross domestic product adjusted for inflation, more than doubled. Yet U.S. emissions from many of the activities that produce greenhouse gases -- transportation, industry, agriculture, heating and cooling of buildings -- have remained about the same over the past 30 years.
Transportation is a bit up; industry a bit down. And electricity, once the nation's largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, has seen its emissions drop significantly. Overall, the U.S. is still among the countries with the highest per capita emissions, so there's room for improvement, and its emissions (PDF) haven't fallen enough to put the country on track to meet its pledges under the 10-year-old Paris climate agreement. But U.S. emissions are down about 15% over the past 10 years. The report mentions how the U.S. managed to replace coal with cheaper, more efficient natural-gas plants while rapidly scaling wind, solar, and battery storage as their costs fell. At the same time, major gains in appliance, lighting, and building efficiency flattened per-capita power use. This also coincided with improved vehicle fuel economy that helped keep transportation emissions in check.
Transportation is a bit up; industry a bit down. And electricity, once the nation's largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, has seen its emissions drop significantly. Overall, the U.S. is still among the countries with the highest per capita emissions, so there's room for improvement, and its emissions (PDF) haven't fallen enough to put the country on track to meet its pledges under the 10-year-old Paris climate agreement. But U.S. emissions are down about 15% over the past 10 years. The report mentions how the U.S. managed to replace coal with cheaper, more efficient natural-gas plants while rapidly scaling wind, solar, and battery storage as their costs fell. At the same time, major gains in appliance, lighting, and building efficiency flattened per-capita power use. This also coincided with improved vehicle fuel economy that helped keep transportation emissions in check.
Left out loss of manufacturing (Score:5, Interesting)
The US shifted away from a manufacturing economy. It is more agriculture/mining/Petroleum, and more service. Less industry.
We moved a lot of the particularly high energy industries out of the country, so this helped our climate, at the cost of China where those industries moved.
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We moved a lot of the particularly high energy industries out of the country, so this helped our climate, at the cost of China where those industries moved.
Actually, our emissions are coming home to roost [pnas.org].
While I'm here, FTS:
The report mentions how the U.S. managed to replace coal...
Yeah, we're trying to fix that [whitehouse.gov]
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China's emissions peaked at less than half those of Americans though. Somehow they are doing even more manufacturing, but without emitting so much greenhouse gas.
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Per capita is the only measure that matters, unless you are willing to suggest culling billions of people as a solution.
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Why on earth would we need to cull billions of people for total emissions to matter? Total emissions matter because as the above has already said, it's earth's total emissions that matter for global warming.
Per capita does matter as well as it suggests efficiency differences between countries but you have to be super careful when comparing China and the US because they are still very different economies. China has come a long way but it's still a developing country (as opposed to a first world one) and ther
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What is the point of looking at total emissions if you are unwilling to do anything to address them specifically?
Per-capital is the only thing that matters, and in China it matters a great deal because they are proving that they can develop into a modern, industrial economy, with a high standard of living, without having to replicate developed nation's high emissions. In fact, the way they are doing it is giving them huge advantages like abundant cheap energy.
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What is the point of looking at total emissions if you are unwilling to do anything to address them specifically?
It tells us how much farther we have to go to get to net zero.
Per-capital is the only thing that matters, and in China it matters a great deal because they are proving that they can develop into a modern, industrial economy, with a high standard of living, without having to replicate developed nation's high emissions. In fact, the way they are doing it is giving them huge advantages like abundant cheap energy.
And you seem to be basing that on a (as I've already explained) dishonest raw per capita comparison.
Comparing the EU and the US on per capita emissions makes sense because their economies and lifestyles are similar by virtue of the countries involved being first world. This is not the case for comparing the US and China as China is still a developing country.
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I mean from a point of view of addressing the problem and figuring out who needs to do better.
Comparing US and China on a total emissions basis makes no sense, unless you are saying that China's brutal one child policy wasn't brutal enough.
Many Chinese citizens enjoy a very modern lifestyle, similar to Western ones. Their emissions have peaked too, and as the rest of them move away from the agrarian lifestyle they are not going to reach the peak level, let alone US ones.
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Many Chinese citizens enjoy a very modern lifestyle, similar to Western ones.
Meanwhile as I said, many don't which is exactly the problem with a per capita comparison. It's not an apples to apples comparison.
Their emissions have peaked too, and as the rest of them move away from the agrarian lifestyle they are not going to reach the peak level, let alone US ones.
What on earth are you basing that on?
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China's per-capita emissions have peaked, as have their overall emissions. Their population will continue to make gains in quality of life and move to urban living, but their emissions (both metrics) won't ever exceed the peak seen earlier this year.
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Their population will continue to make gains in quality of life and move to urban living, but their emissions (both metrics) won't ever exceed the peak seen earlier this year.
That doesn't resolve the fact that China's current numbers are skewed by the fact that a major portion of their population doesn't use much electricity by virtue of the type of poverty poorer countries experience. A more honest comparison would be to look at per capita renewable energy production between the countries. Given that China has 4 times the population than the US it looks like they are actually trailing us on renewable production given their outputs by power source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/. [wikipedia.org]
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That's based on an assumption that as their electricity consumption increases, so will their per-capita emissions. They won't, they are falling and will continue to do so. The momentum of the reduction is higher than that of the increase in output.
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Yes, they are headed in a better direction than us thanks to current US policy. That doesn't change the fact that when you break the current numbers down on a per capita level our grid is currently cleaner. Here's the numbers on that btw.
Per capita calculated using US pop of 340mil and Chinese pop of 1,409mil. Using TWh per hour for all sources as listed here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Location---------|Total-------|Coal-----|Gas-----|Oil----|Total-----|Per Capita---|Hydro----|Nuclear----|Wind----|Sol
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And you're missing my point, comparing China to the US isn't a fair comparison and hides the fact that China's grid is dirtier then our own. There are very real and dramatic reasons why the US is called a first world nation and China still gets referred to as a developing one.
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Sorry, my first comment didn't really address what you were saying.
What is the point of looking at total emissions if you are unwilling to do anything to address them specifically?
If a country is unwilling to do anything about the problem of global warming then looking at either per capita or gross output are equally pointless.
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Which country is unwilling to do anything about climate change in this discussion?
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Currently the US and that is a problem of course. That has nothing to do with the validity of per capita comparisons between the countries though.
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Two wrongs don't make a right.
Per capita is disguising pollution with overpopulation. You cannot simply breed your way to a pollution free world.
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China's population is starting to fall, as they have the same problem every developed nation does with low birth rates.
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You are wrong.
1) China emissions has not PEAKED. It still grows.
2) Per capita is not the only way to measure it and it sucks when dealing with country like China with huge number of people in poverty and a few wealthy.
Better ways than per capita include, but are not limited to:
Per GDP
Per Gwh of electricity produced
Any of these makes far more sense. Going per capita is something a Chinese bot would spread as reasonable without thinking about how it radically favors China. Just as the US could come up with
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The best measure for personal responsibility, but arguably the worst for actually doing a damn thing to solve the problem. Sparsely populated or isolated countries contribute little of the total while scoring high per individual.
Qatar per capital co2 is something like 900% of the global average, but they emit 0.3% of the world's total. Meanwhile, India is a well behaved and below average 40% per capita emitter while being the third largest emitter at 7.6% of the total.
Palau is the undisputed per capita king
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No, because the Americans are number 2 net emitters. They're worse.
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Per capita is indeed a stupid measure but per country is not much better. Countries that have a lot of industry emit a lot, countries that have large urban populations emit a lot. Countries that have colder winters tend to emit more due to heating. At the end of the day, we know exactly what causes emissions - fossil fuel power plants, fossil fuel extraction and transportation. We also know pretty what will drive down emissions - more electric vehicles, more renewable power generation, finding ways to reduc
Missing the point (Score:2)
The point is that the news reporters "conviently" included 30 years in timeline so that the USA is the largest polluter and, per the media playbook, China is not mentioned as the largest polluter.
Last 20 years, China is by far the largest polluter. https://www.carbonbrief.org/an... [carbonbrief.org].
"China’s CO2 output has more than tripled since 2000, overtaking the US to become the world’s largest annual emitter, responsible for around a quarter of the current yearly total."
The net point is that these environme
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That didn't help as much as you might think.
Re: "While Its Economy More Than Doubled" (Score:2)
Who cares? Everyone is absolutely miserable. What's the point of a 'good economy' if only a small fraction benefit?
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Who cares? Everyone is absolutely miserable. What's the point of a 'good economy' if only a small fraction benefit?
That's kind of the entire point of how we measure "good economy." We worry about Wall Street first, big business second, and everything and everyone else can fuck right the fuck off because they don't matter. At all. It's entirely by design, so that the already well off can continue to be more well off, without having to worry about the pesky population of worker class folks. And if the worker class dares to ask why we can't have a little tiny piece of the pie, we'll get told we need to work harder, save ha
Get solar panels (Score:2)
It's power generation that you actually own, and can't be taken away from you unless they physically come for it.
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Sure, if you've got an extra $50K sitting around!
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Where are you getting that number from? I paid $6,500 after the tax credits for a 4.1KW system. That included permitting, installation, panels...everything.
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https://www.energysage.com/sol... [energysage.com]
A 4.1 kW system will not run an entire home, just a few appliances, lights, and fans. If you live in the south where air conditioning is mandatory, you need at least a 20 kW system for a typical home, plus you need battery storage for nights and cloudy days, that will run you at least another $10K.
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You at least used to be able to pay that kind of money (well, $30k) for a professional setup with new stuff.
But even the new stuff is cheaper now, it's well documented, anticipates DIY, and is just a lot easier to do now, and used panels are available for insanely cheap prices.
A much cheaper DIY system can get you blackout protection and will pay for itself in less years than you might think. (If you're unlucky enough to be using PG&E, that's something like a 3-year payoff.)
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I think your numbers omit the required battery to run off the grid at night or on cloudy days.
In Texas, where power prices are 12-14 cents per kWh, it would take more than 15 years to pay for even your $30K price tag.
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No, it pays itself in less then a year.
Because if I sell my house next year, being off-the-grid makes it net $30k more.
Don't look at it as a system which needs to pay itself back, but consider it as a feature to your property which appreciates in value when the energy prices go up
(since if prices go up, the fact that you don't have any make it worth more)
And as a bonus, you don't have to pay energy.ce energy prices go up.
And even if you consider no appreciation on the equipment:
Assume a 5% inflation (bad, b
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Your estimates are rather rosy. Zillow says on average, your solar panel installation will net you about $10,000 when you sell, certainly not $30,000. https://money.com/home-value-s... [money.com].
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A single refrigerator can use up to 800 watts, so your 800 Wp system is *not* going to power your house. My house in the southern US, for example, requires a 20kW generator. You're not going to get that for $300 and mount it yourself. And your system also doesn't consider the need for a battery to keep things going at night or when the sun isn't shining.
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If that's true, you certainly don't live in a place that requires air conditioning.
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That's a very U.S. centric problem. Apparently, the U.S. make it extremely cumbersome and expensive to build and own Solar, while I can go to the next departement store or to an online store and buy a 800 Wp setup for $300, mount it myself, and all the paper work I have to do is to tell my utility, that I have that 800 Wp system in place.
800 watts (peak) will be about 120 Watts average, That won't run a house.
https://www.ecoflow.com/us/blo... [ecoflow.com]
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No, but it's not about being off-grid. It's about generating about 50% of the electricity you need over a year yourself - for $300.
800 Wp will not generate 50% of the electricity you need over a year. Do you even know what Wp means?
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There is nothing that forbids me to install more than one of those $300/800 Wp systems in general. But I am no longer allowed to just plug them into the next wall socket according to local regulations, and inform my utility after the fact. If I want more than 800 Wp, I
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Yes. Watt peak. And it does, at least for me. Let's say I can get 120 Watts on average over 8 hrs at 300 days/year,
120 Watts during 8 hours of daytime will not be "50% of the electricity you need over a year". Period.
If you want to talk about something else, that's fine. It was your statement that you could provide 50% of your electrical use with a 800 Wp array that I was disagreeing with.
That is because (Score:5, Insightful)
we are looking at the wrong measure. How about looking at consumption rather than just production. North America shifted production to Asia but still consumes the products manufactured by the polluting countries. So no I would say NOT.
Re: That is because (Score:2)
How come US consumption has been flat over the past 30 years? https://www.eia.gov/energyexpl... [eia.gov]
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Well yes, if we radically change the rules about how we measure things, we can successfully re-apportion blame to the US, the inventor of slavery, war, and all things bad.
Congrats!
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Poverty and/or China is fudging on population numbers.
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Horrific regulatory nonsense where government rather than people owns what's under privately owned land also guarantees that property owners are massively incentivized to fight fracking, as they get all the downsides and none of the windfall.
This is normal in the US.
I do not own the mineral rights to my property, and most people in states with extensive mineral exploitation have severed estates as well.
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If this was "normal" in US, fracking boom wouldn't have happened
Incorrect.
In US, land owners got compensated
No. Land owners that owned their mineral rights were able to lease them.
But your name suggests you're an Oregonian, and Oregon is indeed one of those rare exceptions that proves the rule.
You're a fucking moron.
Educate [linkedin.com] yourself. [allegianceoil.com]
"Mineral rights can be severed from surface rights, meaning one party may own the land above, while another owns the resources below. This separation is common in oil- and gas-rich states like Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and North Dakota."
You fucking political ideologues are astonishingly ignorant of the things you have strong opinions on.
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I misunderstood your meaning, as I clearly outlined in my opening post that I'm talking about specific regulatory difference between US and EU.
Most of EU, you cannot own what you are referring to as "mineral rights". State reserves those for itself. That means that if someone is allowed to explore for minerals, you as a land owner is completely and utterly fucked. Someone else gets all the profits, while you get all the downsides of having a mine on your land.
That means that all locals who are invested in l
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Me? No. That claim belongs to geologists.
But Europe is very poor in oil and natgas with Dutch reserves running out sometime this decade at current rate, North Sea being slowly choked out for being expensive (and UK's net zero madness). This leaves only fairly expensive Norway with it's offshore platforms and Russians as the only large scale sources for oil and gas.
In this light, even the five layers or so we have in our shale, while far less viable than North American dozen or so are still infinitely more t
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True. That claim peaks at around 80-90IQ. People above that generally understand that Chinese are indeed a communist nation.
down 15% (Score:1)
Just how bad was America?
Oh, 4% of the world's population and 40% of the world's CO2 [ourworldindata.org]
Re: down 15% (Score:2)
Yea, we used to be kind of a big deal.
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Still over a quarter of the entire planetary economy.
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We're viewing CO2 as a cost, so it really should be compared against the other side of that equation.
Per-capita is also alright, but it's just not the whole picture.The US 4% of the world's population, but it's also 26% of the world's economy.
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I'd agree that pinning it to wealth is very wrong.
GDP isn't a useless measure in the slightest. It's true that for certain things, like getting your dick sucked, their are parity issues. PPP addresses some of those (though not that particular one) but also brings along a host of other problems.
For now, it's our best measure of what kind of activity that contributes to the world is on the other half of the cost of the CO2.
1t of CO2 gets emitted.
Is it better if it's used b
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You still haven't explained why the environment cares how much stuff you make or whatever, when the problem is just how much pollution you're making.
The environment doesn't care, of course.
Humans care. And that was made obvious in my example.
1 ton of CO2 is emitted by an American. And 1/2 a ton by a Chinese person. Why do you care what they used it for? The environment certainly doesn't keep track. The American is worse and needs to do better.
Per-capita is important to gauge- but people are not the majority of CO2 emissions. Industry is.
If you want to subtract all industrial CO2 emission, and then do a per-capita on what's left, then we can meaningfully compare "A Chinese Person's CO2" and "An American Person's CO2"
But once we do that, we also need to look at the value of the industry, because CO2 is universal, and we have a right to know what we're g
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Firstly most CO2 is not from industry, it's less than about a third in America.
Eh, fair- but it should have been obvious what I meant from the context of the paragraph- non-Residential-private-citizen-usage.
Most importantly this industry isn't just producing CO2 for fun. It's for the people who want stuff. So you should base it off of consumption and not production if that's the direction you want to go. (Consumption done by the people...)
No, because it's the producer that's engaging in the level of inefficiency- not the consumer.
You can argue that the consumer is vaguely aware that buying shit from China is terrible for the environment, but if you're trying to argue that CO2 isn't an externality, this is going to get amusing.
I wonder if China is the worlds biggest exporter and America the worlds biggest importer...
So, if I get this right, Americans are responsible for Chinese fueling their factories wit
Got rid of those damn incandescent bulbs (Score:2)
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Huh? Incandescents have been banned in the US since 2023, and were phasing out long before that. And lighting is only about 10-12% of a typical home's energy usage. https://mygreenmontgomery.org/... [mygreenmontgomery.org] If you want to drive down electricity usage, focus on air conditioning and heating, which uses almost half of the power consumed in an average home.
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Oh look, electricity use is declining in the US too! https://energyathaas.wordpress... [wordpress.com]
More toxins please (Score:2)
ignoring AI (Score:2)
Most bubble economies output little CO2, since they are fake and built on hopes, dreams, and sweet little lies.
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Potemkin data centers?
\o/ (Score:1)
Was it by measuring emissions in a parallel universe?
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On CO2 we did good, but on Methane? (Score:2)
We got better results by moving a lot of coal burning to natural gas, but the increased production and movement of that natural gas means we're spitting out a lot more waste Methane, now. And it's a way bigger effect greenhouse gas than CO2. Luckily it doesn't last as long.
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However- "waste methane" is very little due to natural gas. It's typically flared (converted directly to CO2 without the years of extra sunlight absorption), and it is absolutely dwarfed by methane produced by domestic waste in landfills.
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> However- "waste methane" is very little due to natural gas.
Could be wrong, but I’ve been informed that this varies wildly depending on the country. Apparently Russians aren’t nearly as careful with their natural gas production - and “anti-frackers” tend to fluff up U.S. emissions estimates by using world averages.
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A Biden-era law provided almost $5B to find and cap them. Haven't really kept up on whether there has been progress on that, or DOGE decided that money was better spent on propaganda on my radio and TV from Homeland Security.
Exported Emissions (Score:2)
per capita emissions (Score:2)
The easiest way to decrease per capita emissions is to import large numbers of unskilled people who are too poor to drive cars, can't afford to have fancy appliances, and who double and triple up in apartments, while having lots of babies.
That is why per capita emissions is a useless measure. The country with the lowest per capita emissions is the poorest country. If you want this kind of measure, you need to correct for the quality of life value of the processes that generate the emissions, for example t
We're doing our part... (Score:1)