Climate Target Update Tracker

by doener • 6 years ago

68 27 6 years ago

wpasc• 6 years ago

U.S. is critically insufficient (hasn't fracking lowered our emissions over the past few years?) while China is only highly insufficient with India sufficient for 2oC?

Genuinely curious, would someone mind explaining that to me?

ido• 6 years ago

I would guess poorer countries' citizens produce less co2 per capita due to using less resources?

efitz• 6 years ago

It doesn't track outcomes, it tracks policy. The China and India ratings make it clear that they aren't tracking effectiveness or whether the policies are even being implemented.

caseysoftware• 6 years ago

That's a small but hugely important distinction that I didn't see disclosed up front.

By that reasoning, the alcoholic who promises "to never drink again!" is on the right track even if he's at the bar drinking right now.

evandijk70• 6 years ago

They have vastly different CO2 emission goals according to what is 'fair', compare:

https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/usa/

with:

https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/china/

Despite that China's CO2 emissions are increasing and the US emissions are decreasing, China meets its goal while the US does not.

The following page explains how these goals were set

https://climateactiontracker.org/methodology/comparability-o...

imtringued4• 6 years ago

Global temperatures are not influenced by yearly emissions. The driving factor of climate change are cumulative emissions over the last 2 centuries. China is a huge emitter but their emissions only started rising 20 years ago. [0] Their cumulative emissions are still significantly below USA.

[0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/World_fo...

eb0la• 6 years ago

I firmly believe the only way to convince _all_ countries to stop emissions is to add an import tariff to goods coming from countries that don't act with the same effort as you.

What if they tax me back in revenge (hello donald)? just jump 10x their tariff.

Don't call me protectionist: the wolrd economy acts like a a supercomputer after all, and we need to rebalance the production economy to places where CO2 matters.

DFHippie2• 6 years ago

The catch is that it's your own citizens who bear most of the burden of these tariffs. That's among the problems with Trump's various trade wars as well. I agree that we need to address the freeloader problem, but I don't think tariffs on scofflaw countries will work.

Well, a caveat: if the scofflaw country is selling you luxuries probably they suffer from the tariff. If they are the sole or chief supplier of the good/service and it is a necessary good/service, then you're just causing trouble inside your own borders: your citizens pay the cost of the tariff. Maybe you can use this revenue stream to make your economy greener, but you're still keeping the change inside your borders.

the_gastropod• 6 years ago

You're not wrong, but there's more than one side to this ledger. Often times, imported things are cheap in a large part because they have massive externalities. China, for example, can manufacture cheap goods because they have less strict environmental protections than the U.S. The "free market" has always struggled to account for the exploitation of our commonwealth. I think we're at a point in history where we're having to confront that fact, and the solution isn't an easy one.

notatoad• 6 years ago

The catch is that it's your own citizens who bear most of the burden of these tariffs.

that's not a catch, that's the whole point. It's not just a punishment for the countries that are polluting, it's also a punishment for people who externalize their pollution by buying from countries that are polluting. Putting all the responsibility on third-world countries doing the manufacturing and none on the consumers who buy whithout concern for where their products come from is the whole problem. the consumer nations should bear the burden of sustainable production just as much if not more than the producer nations.

Trump's tariffs are dumb because they ignore the impact on the consumer, but that doesn't mean tariffs are bad. A tariff on pollution means we stop externalizing that cost. If we pay the cost of pollution, it makes non-polluting alternatives economically viable.

SamBam• 6 years ago

The company being tariffed suffers as well, so long as the tariffs are enforced by a large number of countries, and they don't have a lock on the market (like specific rare elements or something).

"Your own" citizens bear the burden of higher prices from that country, but this is a desired outcome: goods that have higher externalities should cost more. That's the whole point of a carbon tax.

And unless a country really has a lock on a resource, higher tariffs ought to mean the products start being produced in the host country, which is good because it will be being made under the better carbon policies.

Tariffs are dumb when they're enacted out of spite, enacted out of some false sense of balance, or enacted as a short-term bandaid to try and prop up a failing local industry. But in the case of carbon taxes and policies, they would seem to do exactly the right thing: discourage consumption and production of carbon-heavy resources.

RivieraKid• 6 years ago

The source of the problem is very banal, people don't want to take effective measures against climate change. Trump and other politicians are just the reflection of that sentiment. Same in Europe, in my country the first reaction to anything climate change related is: "ecoterrorists", "climate alarmists", "something something Merkel", etc.

imtringued4• 6 years ago

Trump doesn't really know anything about climate change. For him it's just something that those green hippies talk about and he has to strongly differentiate himself from those.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51213003

dafrie• 6 years ago

This is actually a main proposal by William Nordhaus [1], who won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics on climate change modelling! TLDR: So called climate clubs (or "reasonable countries") would punish countries that are not meeting the clubs rules (i.e. a carbon tax of a certain level) by levying tariffs.

[1] https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.15000001

thepangolino• 6 years ago

Wouldn't this cause a reaction forming opposing clubs that don't abide by those rules therefore gaining a competitive advantage?

virgilp• 6 years ago

So under this model, Gambia & Morocco would be punishing USA, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Vietnam and Ukraine?

RcouF1uZ4gsC• 6 years ago

I firmly believe the only way to convince _all_ countries to stop emissions is to add an import tariff to goods coming from countries that don't act with the same effort as you.

The big issue with that is that it won't work with the US. The US is a huge economy that is not export driven. China has a huge economy, but it is export driven and retaliatory tariffs would be absolutely crippling. The heart of the EU economy is Germany, and they are hugely export driven, so are thus very vulnerable to US retaliatory tariffs.

Finally, the US has the trump card of global military reach. What would the EU do if at the end of an escalating trade war, the US Navy blockaded the EU's various ocean ports? This by the way was the historical strategy of the British with regard to continental European rivals like Napolean or Hitler and it caused them major damage at little comparative cost to the British.

The truth is that when all is said and done, the US can inflict a lot more pain globally, than others can inflict on it.

baq• 6 years ago

As bad as it would be for the world economy, from the perspective of climate it’d be a good thing. The blockades would reduce trade, so they would necessarily reduce global resource consumption, thus also making emissions lower.

big_chungus• 6 years ago

What if they tax me back in revenge (hello donald)? just jump 10x their tariff.

This will just start _yet another_ trade war with constantly-escalating tariffs. Current American president notwithstanding, you'll be putting world leaders in a position of "losing face" unless they constantly raise you. The better part of the world's nations have cultures in which such a loss would be political suicide. This is the reason why the situation with china has been so difficult to resolve.

The better solution is to create a better solution. Renewable energy is rapidly becoming cheaper and will eventually become cheaper than coal or gas. Nuclear is already an option; it has very high capex but is cheaper long-term; the problem is a stubborn bureaucracy. Let the market build something better and the problem will solve itself because using less stuff is more sustainable and cheaper.

imtringued4• 6 years ago

I don't think a revenge tax is necessary. You can probably conservatively estimate the carbon intensity per unit of GDP and then set a tariff based on that number.

SlowRobotAhead• 6 years ago

That’s a very nice well polished site, I’ve seen many many businesses with sites that don’t even sort of approach that quality. Good job

bazzert• 6 years ago

From https://endcoal.org/global-coal-plant-tracker/ all announced or in-construction coal power plants.

https://pasteboard.co/IS5YHJv.png

wiz21c• 6 years ago

I'd love to see a tracker which tracks the commitment of countries over time...

Climate Target Update Tracker

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