Okay, there are a lot of colors on this chart, but the only two that really matter are the ones at the top, the purple line and the blue line, both of which are soaring skyward like the carbon emissions those lines represent. China (blue line) and the U.S. (purple) represent 45 percent of the world’s carbon emissions. If those two countries can stick to the agreement they reached this week to curtail emissions, it’ll mark a huge step forward for the environment and addressing the heat-trapping characteristics that make carbon the major culprit in global warming.
But it certainly seems that China can do better, faster. This agreement requires the United States to do better, faster by stepping up the pace of its carbon-emissions program. The U.S. has a target of cutting its 2005-level emissions 26 to 28 percent by 2025. The previous commitment was to cut existing emissions by 17 percent by 2020. In short, it means the United States promised China it would speed the pace of emissions cuts.
What did President Barack Obama get in return from Beijing? China agreed to keep pumping out more and more and more and more carbon until 2030. That’s the year China has set as its peak emissions level, after which it will start cutting back. So the blue line above will level off soon and start to drop. The upward trajectory of the purple line will — just like the Energizer Bunny whose electronics, fur and batteries are almost certainly made in China — keep going and going and going.
Uh, golly. What an achievement.
We are supposed to be very enthusiastic about this, because without such an agreement, China would basically not commit to anything and would continue to pollute with reckless abandon until the end of the world (scheduled, I think, for sometime in 2031).
What irks me about this deal is that it means China will effectively get a pass on all of the unfair trade advantages its pollution policy entails. China gets to undercut American and other world manufacturers by underpaying its workers and ignoring even the most minimal environmental norms. The goods it produces certainly are cheap, but at what price?
China argues, as the chart below depicts, that on a per-capita basis, its carbon emissions remain far, far below those of the United States. Therefore, China argues, it should be allowed 15 more years of industrialization catch-up time before being forced to cut back. I kindasorta understand their point. But, sorry, not really.