As the FT notes this morning:
Global carbon dioxide emissions rose to their highest levels last year after a surge in energy demand stoked by a strong economy and extreme weather, according to the world's energy watchdog.
The Paris-based International Energy Agency said energy demand rose 2.3 per cent last year – its fastest rate since 2010 – and that the growth was met mainly by fossil fuels. That pushed global emissions of carbon dioxide to a record high of 33bn tonnes in 2018, up 1.7 per cent from the previous year.
And you wonder whether we need a Green New Deal?
Like heck we do.
But having spent much of yesterday discussing accounting for a Green New Deal I am under no illusions: this is going to be hard.
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Most of the world live in countries where restraining CO2 emissions is far less important than having some development
A Green New Deal in the UK won’t change that, and won’t change the incentives of the developing world to follow suit. It’s possible if we are producing less, they might even think there’s room for them to produce more. There’s no incentive to reduce.
An assymetric carbon dioxide tax however will give the developing world incentives to reduce or restrain emissions.
The whole world knows of this issue
India is making real progress on it
Whilst you just want the world to fry
My children are not enamoured by you
I guess you have none
It’s also a Euro Centric comment as well.
https://www.dw.com/en/china-leading-the-way-in-solar-energy-expansion-as-renewables-surge/a-39081117
M
It’s not a question of having children or not wanting a cleaner world. It is a question of what country can achieve in isolation. My wife is half India and I have business interests there. Of course pollution is terrible there and needs to improve but it won’t whilst such a high percentage of the population are struggling to survive. Putting food in their children’s mouth today and tomorrow is their primary concern.
I agree, of course
But we can feed the world without burning it
We can stop eating meat, for example
The feeding the world is relatively easy
Perhaps we should leave an organisation which operates a centralised subsidy policy for owners of more than 5 hectares of land – it means that by Calorie we subsidise meat production around 5 times more than production of vegetables and pulses.
But apparently I am a horrid person who wants the world to fry because I support an assymetric carbon tax to restrain CO2 emissions.
I have never said I do not want to reform the EU
I do
And I am happy to have areas where it needs reform discussed
But trite comment – and you verge on it again – is just tediously boring
‘This is going to be hard’ isn’t the best sales pitch I’ve heard Richard! Maybe you could add ‘but we can do it’ or ‘I’m going to make it happen’?
As for developing countries that people are concerned about – the point is, we (the developed countries) have the resources to develop new green technologies & to change the trending ‘civilised’ way of life – ‘developing’ countries are just trying to ‘develop’ into the oil burning western way of life – we make ‘being developed’ the environmentally friendly low carbon emitting renewable circular economy way of life and the developing countries are going to follow without having to invest in research and development. It’ll all be cheaper in the long run, especially if developing countries aren’t beholden to the oil giants. Likes of Scotland, pretty titchy as countries go, our zero carbon emissions will be a drop in the ocean (or less drops hopefully, we want the Arctic and Antarctic to stay frozen) – but, we’ll have the expertise and technology to sell to all those folks lagging behind, and trialing different techniques on a smaller scale is a good test bed, so failed enterprises won’t be so costly (in a global sense).
I just got back from 16 days in Assam and I would like to share some observations about India that give me cause for hope and concern.
The diet was largely vegetarian with a little bit of chicken. That’s great we need to get used to it and easily can.
I visited a women’s co-operative next to Kaziranga National Park, home of the One horned Rhinoceros. The community collect plastic waste from the park (mainly discarded by their city dwelling countrymen), strip it into thread and it is then used to hand weave bags, floor mats etc. Litter is not a noticeable problem in that area but it is in others.
Walking past the yard of a small house 2 children, were smiling and waving at us. My friend asked the mother if he could take their picture. She waved her hand as if to say no, and went inside and promptly a crowd of kids came out of the house. She proudly lined them up in age order and a photo of the beaming family was taken. Examining the image there were 10 little people under 12. I used to have in mind India’s Population was 700 million. I checked and it is now 1.3 billion.
Lots of solar and hydro power development and frequent power cuts, not necessarily connected!
As the worlds largest democracy (bigger than the entirety of western civilisation) I wish them all the luck in the world with their forthcoming election. My hope would be for the U.K. to go as far as we can in a post Brexit world to share our education and innovatory skills and technology with India in a way that respects our differences and improves the well being of India’s people and environment and our mutual trading position.
Thanks for sharing
Going to the moon was hard. Read about it. But human beings did it. What an achievement. What team work. What focus.
So, with a little ad-lib here and there…………………
“We choose a programme of GND in this decade and do the other things such as ending poverty, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.
[Address at Rice University, September 12, 2019]”
― John F. Kennedy Jnr